Behind the Scenes with Yvonne Weighand Lyle

Phew! It’s been really busy so far in Midlothian! I’ve been out and about across the county, meeting up with various groups and local schools, arranging to deliver workshops.

But how do I know what to include in the workshops? You may also wonder how these activities will help the county come up with a memorial artform? Well, this is the work that goes on behind the scenes.

Myself and my colleague Jo have been spending time in my studio and we began by creating a post it notes board as a tool to record our thoughts and inspirations. Then we laid out all the materials and had a look around my studio for anything additional that might be something useful that we could add. We discussed creating individual mood boards that could then be added all together to create a collective county mood board, including colour, texture, artforms and shapes, just the way you might if you were decorating in your home and you wanted to gather all your ideas together.

We then began to experiment with the materials, printing, painting and forming clay!

What will a workshop be like to take part in?

There will be a range of art activities to choose from, everything from a quick chat to writing some words on post it notes to being as artistic as you like with printing and painting. There is something for everyone, you don’t need to worry about your art ability!

Will people be able to take their artwork home?

Yes

I had a thought that perhaps the artworks from the workshops were like mini memorials in themselves? Something to think about perhaps as we go along.