Mobile Art School to visit pupils

March 10, 2020 at 5:00 pm

A mobile art school and a team, both from Robert Gordons University’s Gray’s School of Art will visit Orkney later this month.

School pupils in Orkney will have the opportunity to discover the range of possibilities which exist within the creative industries, as a mobile art school visits Orkney later this month.

A new initiative by Robert Gordon University’s (RGU) Gray’s School of Art, will see a custom-built van equipped with state-of-the-art creative tools and materials visit Orkney between March 16 and 20.

The accompanying team will be delivering workshops across a range of art and design subject areas to local school pupils

The Mobile Art School also offers training and mentoring opportunities for students and graduates, helping to develop the next generation of community-engaged artists and designers.

Craig Barrowman, mobile art school coordinator at Gray’s, added: “The Mobile Art School is going to give pupils in Orkney a chance to try some of the amazing range of skills and techniques that students at Gray’s learn.

“We will be offering traditional skills, such as drawing and sculpture, and we will also be doing more high-tech workshops, such as sculpting in VR, where people can use VR headsets and cutting edge technology to create forms of infinite scale in a virtual space.

“What I’m really excited about is taking the amazing range of kit that we have and sharing the experience of how amazing it is to be an artist and designer and how much fun it can be.”

The Mobile Art School will also be pitching up at the Pier Arts Centre on Friday, March 20, when members of the public will have the chance to take part in workshops and engage with the team.

Orkney project development manager Elsa Cox said: “We are really excited to bring the Mobile Art School to Orkney. It offers a fun way to engage students of all ages with creative industries and to spark imagination in potential creative careers.

“For secondary students it offers a taste of life at Gray’s School of Art without leaving the islands, while providing younger audiences with a range of exciting tools to explore. We are delighted with the local response with the week-long schedule filling up fast. Look out for the pink bus as it travels around the islands.”

The visit is part of wider RGU Orkney activities following the establishment of a base in Stromness to drive and support innovation.

The Gray’s Mobile Art School will visit Stromness Academy, Stromness Primary, St Andrews Primary, Stenness Primary and North Walls Primary schools.