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Sketch the Summer at John Lewis

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Sketch the Summer at John Lewis This August, The Armadillo Team has some red hot midsummer fun planned! John Lewis Newbury has invited Armadillo Art Experience to Sketch the Summer with them. Sessions will be held on:   Saturday 3rd,  Wednesday 7th  and Saturday 17th of August , two workshops each day; one for adults and one for kids! The children's workshops - Seashore, Holidays and Days Out - will be held at 10am and the adult workshops - Beach Huts, Classic Camper Van and Harbour - will be held at 11.20am on each of the dates, in the brand new Discovery Space. As well as this, an As Cunning As A Fox exhibition is already underway in John Lewis's cafe, displaying Simon's paintings for your enjoyment! Tickets to our workshops can be found here: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/aae Spaces will be running out fast so buy your tickets while you can! We're super excited for you to join us for a sunny-season, fun-filled workshop this August!
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Illustrated maps by Armadillo Images

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Illustrated maps are a favourite of Simon's to work on.  Whenever possible he will visit the location to take his own reference photography and then the real fun begins.  Each building, sports ground and everything else on the specification is hand-drawn and then finished digitally to create something a bit like this map of Kintbury in West Berkshire, commission by Kintbury Parish Council.  It has all the charm of a hand-drawn map but perhaps the most important thing is that we can update it should anything need to be changed.  You can see more of Simon's maps here
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As Cunning As A Fox getting craft fair season ready!

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Spring has officially sprung so we're getting As Cunning As A Fox ready for the craft fair season! Simon has been busily working on paintings at every opportunity; they are a labour of love.  He's always finding inspiration in the countryside around us and sketching new designs.  Only his absolute favourite designs get developed and progressed into paintings, all the layered components being cut first from board to create the heavy texture so distinctive of his style. We will be touring the South over the coming months with original paintings and an exciting range of products as well including new cushions designs and limited edition prints.
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We have a dream....art for everyone!

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We have a dream for Armadillo Art Experience!  We have seen firsthand the value of taking time to stop and get involved in something creative.  Not only are we a household of painters and makers but we have worked with the community for some years now helping people enjoy creating something.  We're told the trendy word for this is mindfulness and we think there's a lot to be said for it. An art workshop is a bit of a luxury though and we are working really hard behind the scenes to make our sessions available to everyone; we want to see even more happy faces like these... Armadillo Art Experience is now a not-for-profit Community Interest Company and we are working with a number of funding bodies to provide some exciting and free-of-charge projects in the West Berkshire area, hopefully very soon. We can't wait to be able to tell everyone more about it so watch this space!  In the meantime we post regularly on our Facebook page
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Live creative capture

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Simon has been working hard on his live drawing for a long time now and the latest string to his bow is live creative capture; we are taking bookings for Simon to attend private and corporate events to illustrate all the goings on.  It's tricky but he loves it! Our favourite live creative capture most recently that we can share with you (we don't get to film other people's!) has got to be the The Grand Wedding Fair at Newbury Racecourse on Sunday 17th March.  It was by far the biggest wedding fair we've ever attended so there was a lot for Simon to choose from to draw! This is us with our Royal Wedding style selfie screen, hand-painted by Simon of course!
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Drawing caricature live has taken Simon about fifteen years of practice to master. It's one of the hardest things drawing wise we do. Simon has only been confident enough to draw these in the last few years; which is lucky really as we have been doing quite a lot at events recently! So much more difficult than creating a drawing in the studio, it has to be right first time, with no rough pencil drawing or practice sketches to refine the final caricature.
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Hampshire Country and Garden Festival mural

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On the 10th June we created a mural with the visitors to the Hampshire Country and Garden Festival at Bere Mill, Whitchurch, Hampshire. Everybody who took part did a great job, whether they painted a small flower or a whole marquee and contributed to a lively and colourful mural illustrating the day!
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