Re-Cover Project - Week 7

There was small group who joined us today, due to some upsetting news on the ward which meant some of the men found it hard to focus.

One man was keen to develop his ideas from the previous week. Throughout the weeks, he talked a lot about his cats and all the cats he had in his family, so we have begun to create prints of every cat he can remember. Last week we used acetate to ink and drew into. But he preferred the actual inked plate, so we decided to cut around the shape inside.

This week he drew into polystyrene then printed from it. The action of drawing can be quite a challenge for him, but he persevered and took great care to draw something very precise from memory.  He created a wonderful print, which represents a real milestone for how far his ideas have come during the sessions.

“Thank you for believing in my ideas and all your positive praise and comments”

“I really enjoy these sessions, I look forward to Friday afternoons.”

For another man,  it was his first day on the ward and he said the session calmed him when he was feeling really unsettled. It was also his first time of working with any print materials, so he approached the process with trepidation. However after a few marks and a bit of encouragement - we used magazines and newspapers to find images of his hobby – motor bikes, these images inspired an idea for a pattern. 

He was soon experimenting using different sides and angles of the tools to create different kinds of marks directly into the ink. 

This free drawing approach is something we’ve not seen yet on the ward. “You have a really unique approach” We told him which encouraged him to layer paper shapes, which created some fantastic negative shapes.

He seemed surprised by his work and ended by saying “Making this art is better than drugs!”

It's our final week on the ward next week and discussions are underway between Van, myself and ward staff about different ways of displaying all the work that has been created during the project. 

Bryony and Van