Ready, set, draw – Hailsham care home residents take part in worldwide art festival

Home news

Oct 23, 2020

Residents at a care home in Hailsham picked up their pencils and went back to the drawing board for The Big Draw Festival 2020.

Care UK’s Bowes House, on Battle Road, celebrated all things nature by creating works of art around this year’s theme, ‘a Climate of Change’.  

As part of their event, residents and team members were taken on a virtual tour of Knockhatch Adventure Park, which is home to animals such as owls, racoons and even meerkats. The residents then used the tour as inspiration to create art depicting their favourite furry and feathered friends from the interactive virtual tour.

Residents also took to the care home’s garden for inspiration for their artwork, drawing and using water colours to paint wildflowers.

Launched in 2000 as part of the ‘Campaign for Drawing’, the month-long Big Draw Festival promotes drawing as a tool for learning, expression and invention, and has encouraged over four million people to get arty since its inception. ‘A Climate of Change’, this year’s theme, focuses on the relationship between people and their environment, and offers a great opportunity for older people to reminisce about their favourite nature spots, as well as trips in youngers years to the great outdoors, and how our focus looking after our planet has changed in recent years. 

Helena Barrow, Home Manager at Bowes House, said: “We loved taking part in The Big Draw Festival for a second year – and although things were a bit different this year, everyone loved celebrating all things nature.

“While current circumstances mean we were unable to welcome members of the community into Bowes House, we wanted to reach out virtually for this year’s festival and do something positive, and The Big Draw offered the perfect chance for us to do just that.

“We’re looking forward to decorating the home with the resident’s artistic creations, and look forward to showcasing the drawing and paintings in the home. We'd like to thank Knockhatch Adventure Park for their virtual tour and we can’t wait to join forces again soon.”

After a successful participation in the Big Draw Festival last year, Care UK renewed its partnership in 2020, becoming the main health and social care partner and leading the way in changing perceptions of life in a care home by promoting activity-based care and encouraging other care homes to follow suit. Across the country, more than 70 Care UK homes have been getting arty and working with their local communities virtually to create works of art around the theme ‘A Climate of Change’.

Bowes House is a state-of-the-art care home which provides full-time residential, nursing and dementia care, as well as short-term respite care.  Designed to enable residents to live enjoyable and fulfilling lives, the care home has it very own café, cinema and hair salon, and there is plenty of space, both indoors and out, for relaxation and recreation. The home has a comprehensive activity programme, offering a mix of themed events and group activities.

For further information on Bowes House, please call Customer Relations Manager, Karen Milligan, on 01323 888 611 or email karen.milligan@careuk.com

To find out more about Care UK’s partnership with the Big Draw, and for more top tips on how you and your loved ones can get involved at home, visit careuk.com/care-homes/bigdraw

To find out more about the Big Draw festival, please go to thebigdraw.org