Art Club at the Black Winkle

LAUREN CRAMPTON reckons her parents get the best cards and presents in town. Her secret is to be found at the Sign of the Black Winkle

Nestled into the cliff of the east hill down by Rock-a-Nore is the Black Winkle Studio, the new home of the art club run by the illustrator Claire Fletcher.

I’ve been very lucky to be able to go for a few years now, and my parents have had some of the best Mother’s day cards, Easter cards, Halloween models and festive Christmas presents.

At art club we explore sea side themes, like sitting outside sketching and water colouring beach scenes, drawing fresh fish on a plate as well as painting shells and boats. We have learnt how to do self-portraits accurately, getting our features in the right places. One Halloween we transformed flashlights into bats or cats with glowing eyes and in summer we have painted beautiful fresh flowers and collaged imaginary fairies out of leaves.

We have a great use of art materials including charcoal, ink, acrylic paint, watercolour and paper mache. We also work with wood, paper, textiles and cardboard.

Every week I look forward to going and chatting to my friends and the group at art club. We always have lots of new interesting projects and surprises waiting for us.

All the art projects reflect Claire and her partner Peter Quinnell’s quirky sense of humour. The Black Winkle art club is very popular and unfortunately there are no places available.

Doing art with Claire every week made me consider taking art as a GCSE.

Also in: Visual Arts