Hard work with the kids!

Yesterday i gave a workshop to a group of troubled teenagers about mural painting and character development!

I didn't really know what to expect from these guys, as it was my first time meeting them and didn't know anything of their backgrounds or problems. I'm doing these worshops with them to help them create some characters and get them to try and eventually paint them up large on a wall. All this is in preperation for a final piece which will include their designs on a public wall in Truro, which is the capital of Cornwall.

It was only a small group yesterday, but still heavy going! The group consisted of 15 - 17 year olds who were all living in Social Service Housing and who were all assigned a Care Worker who helped them with any problems. Their own particular problems ranged from armed robbery, assault with a weapon, teenage pregnancy and domestic violence! It took a while to explain exactly what we were trying to achieve, but once i'd shown them a few examples of the type of thing we were trying to achieve, they seemed to pretty keen and proceeded to crack on with doing some drawing and getting the ball rolling!

Listening to their stories while they were working kind of made me sad at the shit that they have to deal with at such a young age! These guys just seem to be getting lost in the system with no help from any family, just their care worker and the people in the houses that they've been placed in. It's going to be interesting to see how this group develops over the next few weeks, and how their creativeness develops too!

Next week, we're moving to a bigger venue where we can start translating some of their ideas to a larger scale. There's gonna be a few more kids coming along who couldn't make it this week, so there's going to be more unkown factors thrown into the mix! I'm just hoping we can get enough out of these kids to come up with a finish piece in time, the wall we will be painting on is 36 metres wide and 5 metres tall...... so we've got a lot of wall to fill.

Busy, busy, busy! I've just finished printing some shirts for a friends new skateboard company which is called Ekta. They're some sweet designs and the shirts look really cool. Printing some shirts for a friends horse riding school next, and then onto some of our own shirts for Rimo-to, which is my own clothing range!

Here's one of the new shirts, which is a new colour way of an old design! Got some proper new designs coming real soon!




On top of all that, i'm trying to do some new designs for my own paintings too! My studio's a bit of a mess at the moment with all the projects that are going on, so if i get any spare time i think i need a bit of a tidy up! What do you think?



Ok, i think i'd better get on with the big clean up! I'll keep you posted on how the workshops develop and how the kids progress with their skills!

Cheers for now, take it easy!

Mat x