FREE PAINTING & DRAWING CLASSES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

Thanks to support from Wiltshire Council, in Autumn 2025, Messums Studios delivered a series of free art classes for young people.

Messums Studios was established to support life-long creative learning with an emphasis on the tuition of skills, material knowledge, and critical thinking. Through the way we teach, we seek to provide everyone with pathways to develop the means to express themselves and to communicate confidently using their own visual language. ​

With the £1870 grant we received from Wiltshire Council, match-funded by Messums.Org, we were enabled to deliver four specialist skill based creative courses in 22.5 contact hours. Messums Studios staff delivered five different creative learning experiences in skills and methods relating to painting and drawing. Out of 50 maximum available spaces, 45 young people signed up and 31 young people attended. Whilst we experienced 6 ‘no-shows’, 5 happening during our third class, but the majority of people who didn’t attend did so due to illness or unforeseen circumstances, such as a tyre puncture or family emergency.

Responding to our experience of no show/no apology, we altered our communication outlining the value of the opportunity and the efforts to offer it. As a result our attendance reflected our bookings thereafter. 

As professionals in arts and culture, we are aware of the obstacles young people face in order to access high-quality, skills-based creative education. In an age saturated with technology, it is all the more important to offer young people the opportunities through which they can express their ideas, create, problem solve, and learn to communicate through their art. In a time of heightened mental health issues among the young, creative activity delivered in a safe and friendly setting has been proven to offer a distraction from worries, new opportunities for personal expression, new ways of seeing the world, and new pathways to friendships.

As a direct result of work thus far completed, and reacting to the overwhelming need for high quality creative workshops, during February 2026 half-term  Messums Studios delivered our set of ‘pay what you can’ workshops for children. Providing access routes to art is most important to us. To enable young people to understand materials and attain creative learning, to reaffirm them in their curiosity and their agency over the environment and the culture which they will affect, and in which they will become adults, is one of the main drivers of what we do. 

With the target audience of children aged 13+, the Southwest Wiltshire Area Board funding enabled us to run the following courses: 

• Drawing Stories & Making Them Eternal | 28 - 29 October 2025 

• Still Life Painting for Young People | 29 November 2025 

• Life Drawing For Young People | 06 December  2025

• Mono-Screen Painting For Young People | 13 October 2025

• Winter Art Day | 23 December 2025

  
  

DRAWING STORIES & MAKING THEM ETERNAL

HALF-TERM DRAWING WORKSHOP

In October 2025, Messums Studios delivered 'Drawing Stories & Making Them Eternal'. This  creative course explored narrative and storytelling through the ancient decorating technique of sgraffito. Participants prepared their own clay slabs for their decorative tiles before drawing out and experimenting with different design ideas on paper to capture their stories. Having been explained the methods and mark-making techniques unique to clay slips and sgraffito, participants were given creative freedom to bring their designs to life.

Supported by their tutor, each outcome of this course was distinctly different, expressing the unique creative language and storytelling of each young person. The pieces were fired by the studio staff and later collected by the participants. 

FREE SATURDAY MORNING ART CLASSES

STILL LIFE PAINTING FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

In this Saturday morning workshop, participants had the opportunity to learn about colour mixing and composition in relation to still-life painting. As part of this workshop, young participants were invited and encouraged to bring objects from home that were significant or meant something personal to them. Participants were shown how to safely set up and adjust easels to the correct working height, as well as how to select and arrange their objects to create an interesting composition. After examining historical and contemporary examples of still life painting approaches and techniques, each individual took to their canvases and began by sketching out and blocking in the compositions in front of them. The experience of painting from direct observation and standing at an easel was a first for many participants. Each participant was guided through the painting process by their tutor according to their individual needs and ambitions for their work. The resulting work was varied and dynamic in style, reflecting the energy of the studio and the artistic expression of each individual. After the workshop, the paintings were framed and displayed as part of a Messums Studios exhibition Drawing Together at Tisbury, Victoria Hall in December.

"P had a great time on Saturday, she really enjoyed the class... despite initially protesting that still life is boring! She stayed up until 10pm on Saturday painting at home! "

-Emma, M (Parent of Participant)

LIFE DRAWING FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

Life Drawing for Young People took place at Messums Studios on Saturday 06 December 2025 10.30 - 13.00. This drawing workshop offered the young participants a rare  opportunity to work with and to learn from the observations of a live (clothed) model. Young people learned fundamental figure drawing skills such as how to measure and translate proportions with accuracy, and how to capture the gesture and form of a pose. Throughout the morning, young people were guided through a series of short drawing exercises and longer poses, focusing on using graphite and charcoal. 

MONO-SCREEN PAINTING FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

Mono screen painting is a rapid and playful process involving painting directly onto the silk screen mesh before pulling the pigment through onto the surface below - producing bold and exciting results. In this experimental painting workshop, participants learned how to successfully paint through the silk screen and use a variety of layering and masking techniques in order to produce rich and expressive prints.  This workshop was attended by six participants, all of whom had never done screen printing before. Young Artists were thrilled with their results and keen to experiment more with this immediate and satisfying process. Prints made by participants in this workshop were framed and exhibited as part of ‘Drawing Together ’, a community exhibition of drawing and painting produced during classes at Messums Studios. 

WINTER ART DAY | 23 DECEMBER 2025

Taking place during the Christmas school holidays, Messums Studios’ Winter Art Day saw young people spending the day learning how to create the illusion of depth and distance in relation to landscape painting. Participants enjoyed having the opportunity to spend a whole day developing their paintings and interpreting the mood and drama of their chosen landscapes. Through guided demonstrations and individual feedback, participants constructed their winter-inspired scenes in layers, working from the background towards the foreground. Young artists in attendance also learned about how to use contrast and colour theory effectively- mixing colour grey’s and using directional brushstrokes to capture subtleties in light and form. Having been shown the method and techniques of acrylic painting, participants were given creative freedom to explore their ideas and realise new worlds in paint. At the end of the day, participants had the opportunity to discuss and reflect on each other's work before taking their pieces home.