Sprinkled with oodles of fun, the Art Room wound down for the summer break this week by sharing scoops of creativity and colourful sweet treats with our ice cream-themed activities, the cherry on top of what has been a fantastic first year of sessions!

As the summer holidays approach and we think about spending time with friends and family, we asked the older children in The Art Room, “where would you like to wake up tomorrow?”  Using The Open Window, Collioure, by Henri Matisse, as inspiration, everyone designed the view they would most like to see on opening up the shutters.

We’ve been exploring all the wonderful shapes and colours of the rainforest over the past couple of weeks in The Art Room with some of its wild inhabitants taking centre stage in our tropical creations.

With temperatures soaring this week, we kept things chilled in the Art Room by enjoying the simple things in life, creating art works inspired by picnic-themed still life activities.

This week in the Art Room we encouraged everyone to dive deep into creativity and make a splash for World Ocean’s Day, which is celebrated internationally in the second week of June.

“Creativity is contagious, pass it on” is a phrase attributed to Albert Einstein and one which we wholeheartedly believe in at The Art Room. Each week we aim to inspire our little community of young artists to embrace their creativity and, through self-expression, imagination and innovation, unlock their potential for growth and happiness.

May is National Walking Month and a great excuse to get outside. So, this week in The Art Room we did just that, looking to nature for inspiration for our creative activities.

Since ancient times, people have collected objects to cherish, display and to share. On 18 May, the custodians of special collections across the world will celebrate International Museum Day. This week, adopting the role of the curator, everyone in The Art Room created their own special collections of artworks for their friends and families to enjoy.

A sketchbook is a tool used by artists the world over; it is a space to innovate freely, work things out, make mistakes and, most importantly, have fun!  So, this week in the Art Room, we all got busy making our own sketchbooks to create a special space for all our young artist’s ideas to land and grow.

While many sizzled in Thursday’s high heat and strong sunshine, everyone in the Art Room kept it cool and enjoyed a relaxing time exploring ideas of energy and movement without even breaking a sweat!

It was great to be back in The Art Room after the Easter break, and we began our summer term of art by celebrating the 250^th birthday of renowned painter JMW Turner – the face on the reverse of the £20 note!

It felt very spring-like in the Art Room this week as the sun streamed through the windows and candy-coloured blossoms were sprinkled throughout our ‘happy place’ along with the vibrant colours and shapes of Easter.

After our aquatic explorations of the past couple of weeks, we were back on terra firma on Thursday in the Art Room to seek out different subjects from the land on which we live.  Our Preschoolers travelled far and wide and found inspiration in the lush, green clearings of the jungle while our Afterschool artists stayed closer to home, creating works inspired by the season in our local park.

We continued to investigate our marine theme in The Art Room this week and across our classes we explored how we might achieve movement and dynamism in our art works.

We left the heights of a sunlit sky and took a dive under the water in the Art Room this week to explore a new, two-week subaquatic theme.

Our creative adventures continued to float skyward this week in the Art Room as our artists went up, up and away in their very own hot air balloons!

The stars quite literally aligned for The Art Room this week as an extraordinary, real-life, planetary parade took place in the skies above Harpenden, which could not have been a better complement to our celestial art theme!

Love was in the air this week in the Art Room as we made lots of swoon-some art works that were inspired by the traditions and symbols associated with Valentine’s Day, celebrated across the world on 14 February. 

‘Reimagine your world’ is this year’s theme for National Storytelling Week, 1 - 9 February 2025. This week in the Art Room, we drew inspiration from our own favourite tales.

This week, millions of families across the world held celebrations to mark the Lunar New Year. On 29 January 2025, Chinese and other Asian communities ushered in the Year of the Snake, the sixth of twelve animals represented in the cycle of symbols from the Chinese zodiac, welcoming in good fortune and prosperity.