The Big Draw

At the Springdene Group each home has its own way of encouraging residents to demonstrate their creativity through the medium of painting. Whether it's about reigniting a passion that has become dormant, or getting someone painting for the first time, we love to get residents to pick up a paintbrush and create something unique.

EaselOctober is Big Draw month in twenty countries and on five continents. Launched in 2000, this annual initiative has grown from 180 events in the UK to over 1500 worldwide. The Campaign aims to use drawing to connect people with museum and gallery collections, urban and rural spaces - and the wider community - in new and enjoyable ways.

Every Big Draw season offers unlimited scope for those who love to draw and those who think they can't.

For the last four years we have participated in the Big Draw - full details can be found here at http://www.campaignfordrawing.org.

Classic paintings were recreated at Spring Grove, Spring Lane and Springview. Individual squares were painted by residents, families, visitors and staff and the results are on show in each home.

The big draw
Inspiration
We have been inspired by the work of Tina McCallan to recreate classic masterpieces. She explains it thus:

"For me, the recreations have to do with nostalgia and memory. The act of recreation enables one to inhabit the mind and vision of the original artist, to study details and make it anew. The preciousness of the original is translated into a different kind of preciousness: that of human idiosyncrasy. It's as if you are looking through a hundred different eyes all at the same time, similar to an insect's vision. Projects have become more about interpretation and collaboration. I like the idea that there are these skew whiff visual Chinese whispers silently emulating their original masters.

The work is essentially a site-specific painting performance where we create, with the help of the public and visitor, a painting. The idea is to engage the institution and the audience by inviting them to paint their own masterpiece."

Tina McCallan
www.tinamccallan.com