We have been exploring outer space with the young people in our Hidden Project over the last few weeks. In this session, after practising the song we composed last week, the young people asked if they could use the canvases and paint pens in the arts flat to create galaxies. This is something we had worked on before, an idea all of their own. The girls sat down, experimenting with using the paint pens in different ways such as applying them directly to the canvas and mixing them with water in a palette before applying with a brush.

They had come up with some great compositions, and explored using different techniques, blending and layering colours, and flicking the paint across the canvas.

Louie and I saw noticed that the girls seemed to really enjoy this theme of outer space, so we agreed that in the next session we would return to the light painting skills we learnt at the  beginning of the Hidden Project in Broomhill and create photographic interpretations of the milky way.

Louie brought in his light stick with preloaded images of planets, stars and moons. We blacked out the room again and set the camera to long exposure to capture the image as we dragged the light stick across the room.

RIG Arts have ordered UV lights, UV artist’s paints and UV fabric paints so that we can begin to design an immersive environment within the flat, transforming the studio into an outer space dimension. We began by painting galaxies onto stretches of black paper on the wall, and will continue next session layering and building up the image with UV paints and enhancing the effect with fairy lights and coloured torches.