Blog

For this year’s Leigh Art Trail, we had a change of venue, as after 3 fabulous years at the Refill Room, we headed off to Metal Southend, in the delightful surroundings of Chalkwell Park.  It felt like a home coming as we first met each other at Metal on Heidi Wigmore’s Creative Journalling classes. 

Our theme this year was Ghosts. As usual, we each took the theme in a very different direction, for instance Nicola said “It’s also been a chance to explore the idea of what a ghost is. Are ghosts really lost souls, wandering?  Sometimes with good intentions?  Playful, even? At other times angry with the life and people they left behind?” while Jo was inspired by the book ‘Miss Willmott’s Ghosts‘. Juliet took her inspiration from the ghosts of Chalkwell Hall saying “Using research by writer, artist, and archivist Rachel Lichtenstein* as a starting point, I delved into the history of the Hall.”

Amanda took a more instinctive approach, “No one idea has dominated the process of creation, but I have allowed it to develop and suggest to me what my overarching concerns were with the theme ‘Ghosts’.” whilst Kim created a ‘Miscellany of Ghosts’, “Well, I began with a list. Thinking about ghosts I wrote down whatever sprang to mind. As the list grew and grew, I realised that we use the word ‘ghost’ to describe a great many diverse things.” and Helen delved into her family history to reveal, “Yet, ultimately, I think this book is about haunting. How we’re haunted by our pasts. Our choices. Our guilt. Our memories. Haunted by our ancestors, even…

Metal proved to be a great venue as we had lots of room to show our Ghosts books, plus some accompanying working books and explanations. We also had a creativity table that all ages could have fun with drawing.  We had a good mix of those who are avid Trailers and those walking through the park and popped in to see when the door was open, and those whose dogs came in for a look without them!  

We also had the benefit of showing with other artists (Wendy Scotland, Mia Davies and KOMAR) also exhibiting at the Hall. This resulted in a rich variety of work for people to see, plus many arty chats during the week. It also enabled us to co-host a private view, plus it was a treat to be able to see so many of our friends, family and supporters, on a very rainy Sunday afternoon. 

Thanks to Metal for allowing us to exhibit our work, and to Wendy and the whole Art Trail team for organising such a great week. 

The Leigh Art Trail event: 6 – 14 July 2024.

So, #LAT2023 saw a return to seven members of SEVEN Sketchbook Collective. Our third year showing at waste-free grocery store The Refill Room. And, 14 concertina art journals featuring our shared theme: the four seasons.

Why The Seasons?

Well, saturated with visual inspiration and symbolic meaning, the seasons provide the perfect backdrop against which to ponder a variety of ideas. 

Life. Death. Growth. Decay. The transience of nature.  The stages of human life.  From personal memories to imaginative musings. Through hares, haiku, and beyond.  We took a creative trip through the seasons SEVEN-style. 

Why Such Small Books?

Having handmade our books and gone all out size-wise in 2022, for 2023 we went small. Deciding on palm-sized concertina sketchbooks, which would feature two seasons per book making it a fourteen book display. 

While some might think a small book is a restricted book, in fact working within tighter boundaries can really help focus the creative eye. Plus, this particular book is ultra portable, making it not just easy to work in, but also to display, and for Trailers to explore.

And, due to the concertina or accordion format, we had the option to work across pages.  In fact, this is how we began our seasonal explorations back in autumn 2022, working throughout one side of our first sketchbook, making random marks in ink. 

What Inspired the Window Display?

Our newest member Karen Christensen had introduced us to collage carpets at one of our workshop evenings. Inspired, we took this new technique  and used it to make seasonally-themed banners to hang in the window of The Refill Room, to help signal our presence beyond our LAT A-board and eco balloons.

After a lot of faffing, and with the help of some medical tape (we were MacGyver-ing it!), the window display turned out to be something of a success in its own right. Not only was The Refill’s Gemma pretty keen on it, some visitors likened the glowing banners to prayer flags, while others even asked if they were for sale…

What About the Animation?

In other creative news, this year also saw SEVEN make a foray into animation.  A group excursion to the William Kentridge exhibition at the RA featured some fascinating stop-frame films, so when Nikki returned with her interactive, stage-set of an autumn-themed journal just before Christmas, last year, this seemed like the ideal way to present her vision. 

So, Jo — who’d decided to use William Kentridge as her inspirational guide for her winter journaling — took this opportunity to help Nikki create a magical mini movie. You can watch this nostalgic fairytale-esque film here.  

Never one to do things by halves, Jo also created a wee windy winter scene of her own, accessible via QR code from the pages of her journal. View the animation.

One of the key images that I love about winter is the silhouette of bare trees against the sky. So, as an addition to my winter sketchbook, I’ve created a short stop-frame animation of windy trees, inspired by William Kentridge.

SEVEN visited the William Kentridge exhibition at the RA last November which included a number of short, hand-drawn animations. I thought the simplicity of the animations was really effective and I wanted to try to capture this.

The first step was to draw several trees to illustrate the movement of them blowing in the howling winter winds. Each tree was cut out of card and photographed against my sketchbook, which I used as a background. I then built the animation and added a ‘wintery’ sound clip.

Enjoy!