Using creativity and imagination to support well-being…
There’s a lot to be found on-line these Covid crisis days, but here are a sample of the web resources we have liked, whether craft and making, looking at pictures and exploring visual art, or just a library full of good reads – all for free.
Use your creative skills and new found resources to rest, enjoy and create in difficult times.
‘Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time…’ Thomas Merton, Trappist monk and poet – see more on Wikipedia.
Update: 17th February 2021
During any lock-down access to art, design, colour and learning is a great stretcher of the Covid mind-space.
Why not try the new Arts Council free app.
A sort of Tinder for the arts. You can select your favourite Arts Council pieces from the app, and then the system makes a specific arts themed collection, based on your tastes to view, discover new things and to read about.
We loved it. When we did ours we were nearly all ‘boundary breakers‘. Who knew?
The app is available from your usual app store – search for Art Crush – be entertained and enthused about great art too!
Update: 18th November 2020
Some really nice music therapy videos, freely available on-line, from Belltree Music Therapy CIC in Hove, Sussex.
Although therapy sessions are not part of the mix, these free resources support your well-being, using music to help undertake journeys in your imagination…
Project funded by the Arts Council of England, The Community Fund and other partners.
Update: 9th November 2020
Get Creative At Home – the opportunity to take part in a major Covid study, researching the effects of creativity in lock-down.
If you have used any of the creative resources, from Get Creative At Home, see below, during the current health crisis you can now take part in a large community study to determine the effects of creative activity and well-being.
The work is led by University College London, the Arts Council of England and the NHS, amongst others.
There is a simple on-line form to complete, some questions to answer and a chance to express how you feel about creativity.
#GetCreativeAtHome goes live:
You can access a range of ideas and activities in a variety of creative themes, a list that is growing daily. (April 2020).
Free activities, and some for a small ‘at cost’ fee, all of which may miss the beady eye of the new media arts pages.
Update: 10.08.2020 – new from the BBC – Get Creative at Home Masterclasses. You can find singers, actors, comedy, craft makers and more…read more here.
Update: 25.04.2020 – now with over 100 projects and things to do, many of them free. Great ideas, voluntarily donated in unsettled times. Our thanks to all the contributors.
Check out the #GetCreativeAtHome activities page and enjoy your creativity. The list is bound to grow…
‘Get Creative is brought to you by arts and creative organisations and individuals across the UK and is supported by Arts Council England, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Arts Council of Wales, the BBC, Crafts Council, Creative Scotland, Libraries Connected, Local Government Association, Scottish Libraries & Information Council, Voluntary Arts, and What Next?.‘
Firstsite, Colchester – Art is where the home is…
This centre for creativity in Essex are producing Artist Activity Packs to stimulate the inner artist in all of us.
A great source of different media, ideas and outputs – all ideas from recognised artists of renown.
View, print or download your first Artist Pack here (.pdf).
You might even send us an image of your work – we’ll start a client creativity page too!
Update: 17.04.2020 – you can now view, print or download a second Artist Activity Pack – more fab creative ideas from Firstsite – see more here.
Update: 15.05.2020 – you can now view, print or download a third Artist Activity Pack – more fab creative ideas from Firstsite – see more here.
New York Academy of Medicine – make my colouring book
NYAM might seem an odd destination for fans of the colouring-in book as a restful resource?
But, this is a world class depository of line-drawings on a truly epic scale – all free and all downloadable.
From around the globe, the complex, to the simply elegant, we are convinced that you can spend many hours here, with your felt-tip pens and your imagination.
Explore and enjoy yourself.
The Gruffalo stayed in the cave – The Guardian, Axel Scheffler and Julia Donaldson
If you read The Gruffalo to your children when they were young, or are just looking for some elegant, amusing imagery to visualise aspects of the current Covid crisis, helping you to realise you are not alone, this is a great resource.
You may not read the The Guardian, but you can visit their web pages for these great creative images.
We will never tell! See more here.
Tilda Swinton, dogs and Handel…
This video of actress Tilda Swinton’s Springer Spaniels cavorting in pastoral Scotland to a Handel aria performed by counter-tenor Anthony Roth Costanzo won’t solve the world’s problems, but…
‘Swinton and her partner, artist Sandro Kopp, filmed the beautiful beasts in such a way as to highlight their doggy exuberance, whether moving as a pack or taking a solo turn.‘
Love dogs, love music – this is therapy with no barking!
The Open Library from the Internet Archive (…article updated: 24.06.2020)
‘…a collection of books that support remote teaching, research activities, independent scholarship, and intellectual stimulation while universities, schools, training centers, and libraries are closed. ‘ (Or just great, interesting reads when you are isolated…Ed).
Here you will find nearly a million and a half e-books, freely available, in many world languages. Across many genres and countries of origin.
The whole catalogue is supported by the Internet Archive, an organisation, like the Open Library, another IA initiative, which functions as an international lending library in more normal times.
The Archive contains millions of books, videos, films, web sites and more.
See more, read more…
designboom – Things to do in a lock-down…
An interesting anti-lock-down resource from the architectural and design magazine, designboom.
From learning about film, making compost and turning your bedroom into a camera obscura – this is the most profound lock-down link sequence we have found yet…
Go to the pages of designboom and start being creative!
