The Last Event

Just over two weeks until the last event.
From story telling to speaking up, from hippie art and hugging tree's. Making puppets, masks and animations. To walking round the woods in the dark of the night talking about ghosts and tales from the past. Treasure Hunts to Artist's Cafe's.

The one thing that will continue is the Artist's cafe as quite a few people have said they would like it to carry on. Why not, it's a free social event, an excuse to get together talk art, do art - or chat generally.

From January onwards artist's have been playing in your area - up to all sorts of things - Misguided Walks - Poetry Slams.
Anyway I have enjoyed my time and am looking forward to the last event, see you then.

It's that time again, first Sunday of the month - Artist's Cafe.
Meeting at 12.00, look forward to seeing everybody.
Make mine a Cappucino!
Can you believe it's September already?!

The Winner's of the Treasure Hunt

Treasure Hunt and Painting in the Park

Well done to the two winners Kharys and Derek, such nice kids, they won a big watercolour art set and the five runner up prizes won small art sets.

The big watercolour art set contained a set of tube and a set of pan watercolours and watercolour pencils plus some canvases, a mixing tray, brushes and drawing pencils.

Three interesting points to remember

Positive Feedback

Today I received some positive feedback via an email, they said

"Hello Lisa,
We both thought it was really good fun and very interesting, we did a ghost tour in penzance a few years ago and also last year we done Jack The Ripper tour in London and they were both really good But the one you did was good the speaker he came over really well and the kids who were shouting and screaming they were very good to, If you do anything like that again could you let us know, perhaps you could do one on Halloween night and that would be good.
Once again thank you for a really good night.

Many Thanks

Andrew"

The Last Two Event's

You can click to enlarge this, yes it's the last two events and sandwiched in the middle is the monthly Artist's Cafe. I'm hoping for wonderful weather tomorrow for the Treasure Hunt.The final event will be the Nature Walk and Arty Workshop with the help of Vic the park keeper.Then it's all over! I hope everyone who has participated has enjoyed themselves and everyone who did the workshops with me gained a lot from their experiences and discovered skills they didn't realise they had.

THE FILM - 'Headless Ghost Tour - ArtCafe Style'

We Weren't Alone!

And I don't mean the Youth Council who were in the bushes. I have just spotted that we weren't alone, and Neil definitely wasn't. Behind him on the picture above is an orb (centre of his back). On the picture below there are a small collection of orbs - unless there is any other explanation? I'm looking forward to seeing the film that Jack has done of the ghost tour even more so now, to see if we spot anymore orbs! Spooky.

Click on pictures to enlarge.

Evidence that the Youth Council were there

The Youth Council and friends go off to get ready to haunt us in the woods. They had arrived early and had put things around like spider webs and other special effects.

Whilst the stories were being told we also had rustling noises, breaking branches, a few chilling screams. Some of the audience were looking quite disturbed!

The Headless Ghost Tour - ArtCafe Style

------------------------------Nick led us around Nevendon Bushes, narrating with great gusto. We also had great sound and visual effects from the Youth Council.

Nick's voice must have reached the far corners of the woods as he told the story, we were entertained with tales of Voysey the criminal youth. Basil the owl-headed hunter, a duel in a clearing in the woods. The Coven and the Gangster's Torso, and to finish it off Neil made up the finale.

Here is Neils first proper piece of script-writing:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Haunted Bushes

As you have heard, there are many stories related to Nevendon Bushes. Some colourful characters have roamed the woods and used it for their unsavoury acts. But the spirits of those killed remain, trapped in the thickets and scrub, and at night they are especially active. It is no coincidence that there are few who venture into these woods at night.
Dark shadows can be seen silhouetted against the sky at dusk, often on a warm summer evening.
Strange rustling noises can be heard in the woods and there are even tales of a figure in the bog where we stopped earlier, most commonly seen after a wet summer.

We would not recommend walking alone at night as the spirit of old Abraham Voysey is said to roam here in the hope of taking revenge on his son. There are some reports of the Headless Hunter frequenting the clearing.
But the most chilling story is of the spirit of a bare-chested man.
Could this be Voysey? Or a Vane brother? It is said that the face is black but that a red scar can be seen clearly on the neck.
There are also reports of an awful smell like someone has not washed for weeks and the skin has started to rot and weep. Some say the smell is foxes, but even the foxes will not venture into certain parts of the woods – why?

One thing is for sure, these bushes contain something far more sinister than other woodlands.
The reports of a bare-chested figure rising from a concrete grave at night, close to the edge of the woods, faceless, and fleet of foot – you wouldn’t want to meet him. So steer clear of odd concrete structures in the darkness of the night.

Thank you for attending this evening.

Sleep well!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We had to have a drink after this and all headed for the Watermill.

A Reminder of the Time Change

I must point out that the time has changed from 7.30 to 8.45 as Nick and the Youth Council both thought it would be too light and not eerie enough.
Spooook to you sooon!!

Inspirations for 'Headless Ghost Tour - ArtCafe Style'

Ghost Walk by Andrea Mason for Art U Need Needs U from the 'Nevendon Tales' by Simon Bill.
This was read by former London Tour Guide Chris Lowthorpe who is also a member of the Arcadian Collective http://www.myspace.com/arcadiancollective .
Myself and others enjoyed the experience very much. I have permission from Andrea to use this story in my events. It is as written but we have changed the end story, the new story which is a sort of summarising of the other stories was written by Neil Horner. So we are calling it 'The Headless Ghost Walk - ArtCafe Style.'


When we were on holiday in Cornwall we went on this one man show ghost walk, it was quite inspiring. Although the guy himself wasn't terribly terrifying the stories got you hooked and listening.
At first some people laughed because he was rather posh and nice sounding but by the time we heard a couple of his tales we were listening intently.
He was guiding us around St. Ives which is a very old town with lots of winding narrow roads.
I was quite impressed with the profit he would make from telling a story, he was charging £5 per adults and £3 for under 16 and there were about 30 people there, mainly adults.

www.myspace.com/herron23h

I am very proud to say that I have sussed out how to do a myspace layout and have put Lisa Smith's Hippy Art Sculpture as the main feature, of course you have a view of Northlands Park too. www.myspace.com/herron23h
There is a fishing match on on Wednesday at Northlands Park from 8.00 in the morning until 1.00pm, apparently anybody can enter.

What's Next

Click to enlarge

Jack's Workshop at Bardfield School

Jack did a two day workshop at Bardfield School over the holiday, he and the kids made a great little animation which I will show on here once he puts it on You Tube.

The Animation Workshop

Star of the Workshop

Rob's plasticine monster!

The Animation Workshop

This went really well, it was a cloudy day so this accounted for a few of those who were booked in not showing, we had six who made it and quickly filled the four remaining spaces. A few more had a go a bit later.
Jack got them to make their plasticine characters then did stop animation in the dolls house, which was just the right exposure of light for the filming. Everyone was thrilled with their mini animation films and we're going to show them on this blog very soon.
Click on photo's to enlarge.

Take a look at this! Loco Motion Animation Workshop

Animation Workshop next Monday

I could write so much about the Loco Motion Animation club, my son has been involved with them for two and a half years and is very proud about the part he played in making their first fully funded film 'Two Different Worlds' that was shown at the UCI cinema (as it was then) Festival Leisure Park in 2006. Have a look at what BBC Essex had to say about them.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/essex/content/articles/2006/04/06/loco_motion_feature.shtml
Here are some other links to look at too.
http://creativityisme.blogspot.com/2006/12/jack-norris-and-loco-motion-animation.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbYamEI6eII
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE1Emhq6W2E

Jack and his friends will be showing your children how to make 3D animation, and possibly 2D animation. I know that everybody is going to have fun!

How Charlie's Mask-making Workshop went

After a bit of an iffy start this went fabulously well, Charlie and I were inundated by little people who wanted to make a mask. We had tiger masks, robot masks, witch masks and few individual inventions. The adults thoroughly enjoyed themselves too - getting very creative.

The iffy start was threatening rain and it was getting close to 12.30 and there was no gazebo in view at all. It turned out that there were a whole new group of park attendants as the usual group were somewhere else and they didn't know anything about my gazebo, but they put up the gazebo for me which I was grateful for. But all's well that ends well, so they say.

I went home feeling that we'd got over a few hurdles and it was a very successful day, we had happy children and parents who were very appreciative and grateful of our efforts.

The Mask-making Workshop photos

Looking forward to the Mask Making Family Workshop

Looking forward to the Mask Making Family Workshop. Masks have been used over the centuries in many ways, in this country we had Masked Ball's and they were used in the flirtation ritual between man and woman. They were often used in theatre, and in other countries for tribal ritual.

Just made a mad dash to Basildon.....

.......to buy the prizes for the Treasure Hunt, I've got one big prize worth £30 and five smaller prizes.
I also bought some spare torches for the Headless Ghost Tour.

In between Events.....

Next Monday brings us the Mask Making Family Workshop, I'll tell you more about that later but before that a few things I want to mention:-
On my Myspace there are some Basildon based friends I want you to be aware of, have a look at www.myspace.com/culturalheritage this is the Myspace for ChASE or otherwise known as Cultural Heritage for All in South Essex.
Then there is a young group called Tech Control who's Myspace is www.myspace.com/techcontrol1 they made quite an impact at the Bas' Fest' this year.

Aside from that I do think Northlands Park is something you can be proud of and if anyone would like to send photographs of the area in at herron@globalnet.co.uk I could show them on here or if you have your own website with pictures of either Northland's Park or Nevendon Bushes I'd be happy to make a link.
I spent quite a lot of time on the Heritage Trail this year and learnt a lot about photography from Bob Fisher, the only thing is my camera isn't brilliant, but I'm going to attempt to get some nice shots of these two areas.
I would really like it if after my events my board was used for displaying photographs of the park, maybe rare sightings of birds, or other life forms. Captured beauty, the swans at their most magnificent! The board will also be used for advertising the on-going Artist's Cafe. Of course if Sarah and Neil agree.

And there's more.......

click to enlarge

2nd Clue to the Treasure Hunt

So it's http://www.g - - - - - - - - - - p - - - s - - - - - - - p - - l.blogspot.com/
This is the blog where a series of questions will give you the answer to the first clue of the Treasure Hunt. This place in Basildon is one of the oldest buildings and it is made up of four words.
G - - - - - - - - -/ P - - - /S - - - - - - - - /P - - l, the first two words is the name of the place where the Basildon Festival has been held over the past few years. The second two words is where you wear a bikini or trunks or swimming costume.
Come on you must get it now!

This has now expired.

Puppet Family Workshop 2

...............................

Well this time we captured the puppet show on video, the children got on with making their puppets and we had time for the children to do their own puppet shows which we videoed.

It all went really well, lots of satisfied, happy little faces.

Whilst I was here I got talking to Vick Hobbs (?) hope I've got that right, who is responsible for the welfare of all the wildlife - he has a wealth of knowledge he is willing to share.