Discover the Thrill of Creating Collaborative Art Work!

Collaborative art work is awesome. Creating a painting with a group of people unites you in a shared creative experience. You grow in confidence as you paint with others. You move from place to place and interact with what each other is doing. You layer and overlap. You build your skills and confidence without comparison anxiety. You also avoid the performance pressure that we all feel painting our own individual artwork.

Let’s have a look at three collaborative art works from my own collection of social art projects:

Find Your Confidence in Creating the Layers of a Vibrant School Mural!

This collaborative art work, “Find Your Confidence”, was the ‘mobile mural’ of a public mural at their school. Aberfoyle Park High School is located in South Australia. It takes the mural inside on a canvas. It was painted alongside the large wall mural. This collaborative art work was created in a freeform style. The process involved a guided spontaneous form. The girls were directed to start painting circles, spirals, and dots of different sizes and colors. They then added to each other’s elements, layering patterns and marks. This process built on the visual complexity over several weeks.

Reflection:

This collaborative art work was created by a group of teenage girls. They painted out in public and built their confidence. They realised they can do more than they thought possible. People walking past who watched them paint were ‘zoned out’. In fact, those people were highly complimentary about what they were creating!

Aspire to Success by Using the ‘Success Strategies’ of Collaborative Art Projects.

This collaborative art work “Aspire to Success” was created by 120 junior primary students over three sessions. It connects to the school logo of IQRA College in South Australia. The kids had a great time in several rotating groups. Each level of kids did a different stage. The reception kids did ‘Messy Playing’ with sponging, stencilling, and scraping. The grade ones did ‘Exploring’ with medium and small brushes. The grade twos did ‘Bling!’ with paint pens, stickers, and glitter glue. SO many kids! This is a detail from 2 collaborative art projects created over three sessions.

Reflection:

This is one of two large canvases – needed with this many children, that’s for sure! The teachers told me some children accomplished more in this novel situation than they would in the regular classroom. It’s the novelty and the ‘group painting’ that allow shy children to be more adventurous. They can hide in some ways as they create with each other, moving around and being free to explore. They build their creative confidence and can then feel more capable to create in their individual art.

In this collaborative artwork, created in only one session, we used brushwork, stamping, layering and overlapping. It has a mixed colour palette. These days I would have a coloured background (the underpainting) and then layer cool then warm colours. Really, a background that is not stark white is a game changer! There are many ways to approach this. You can use one colour, an ombre, spray paint, or blotches of colours. All these techniques impact the final artwork. Most importantly, an underpainting frees people to start! That white canvas is very much a visual block.

Reflection:

This was my first collaborative art work. I worked with a group of fellow parent carers. This was part of our “Parents Time Out” activity for Mums of children with special educational needs. This is when I first felt the thrill of collaborative art. It led to the hundreds of artworks created with over two thousand people so far.

3 Collaborative Art Works – Conclusion:

These three collaborative art works show how different groups collaborate in art creation. Young children, teenagers, and adults enjoy creating together. In doing so, they paint truly unique artworks. These are developed from the dynamics of their group. This may involve ten ladies. It might also include 120 little kids just starting school. They have fun!

Discover how to create collaborative art works like these. Join my Inner Circle email list. I will give you “Starting Your First Social Art Project at Home”. It is my free 7-page step-by-step guide. You can easily paint a unique artwork. Use my three fun stages. Do this with a group of people in your life.

– Charndra, Your Inclusive Social Art Guide.

Let’s Chat:  

I love spirals. Circles turn into spirals. Big, small, open or tight spirals look great on an artwork – they are my favourite shape.

Are you keen to try this form of collaborative social art? It’s called ‘Pattern Play Collaborative Art’ because we layer approachable and accessible patterns from my ‘Pattern Play’ visual resources. These resources are tools. They help you create unique and beautiful collaborative art projects. You can paint with groups of people in your life!

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