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

Home news

Oct 29, 2020

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

Care UK’s Harrier Lodge, on Thanet Way, celebrated all things arty by teaming up with a local school to recreate a famous work of art.

Residents and team members partnered with Joy Lane Primary School, to recreate Kandinsky’s famous work, ‘Squares with Concentric Circles’, which uses bold colours and shapes to express feelings. The idea for the project came from the team at Harrier Lodge, who promote art therapy as a way for residents to express emotions, particularly those who live with dementia.

The residents then picked their favourite designs from those shared by the pupils, and the pupils picked their favourite pieces of artwork from residents. There were six categories, including ‘most imaginative’ and ‘most colourful’, and the winning designs were revealed over a Zoom call between the home and the school. The winners received rosettes and a bag of sweets for their efforts, and everyone chatted about their artistic creations and expressed how much they had enjoyed taking part in the project.

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.

Diane Collins, Home Manager at Harrier Lodge, 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 art.

“Creative activities play a big part of life here at Harrier Lodge and we actively encourage residents to continue lifelong arty hobbies and try new expressive pastimes. Drawing has a variety of benefits for older people, especially those living with dementia, as it provides an alternative way to communicate and express emotions, and an opportunity to relive happy memories.

“We’d like to thanks the pupils at Joy Lane Primary School for taking part in our project – we've all had our creative juices flowing, and we can’t wait to display the final masterpieces in the home and on our Facebook page for everyone to see.”

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 homes have been getting arty and working with their local communities virtually to create works of art around the theme ‘A Climate of Change’.

Harrier Lodge is a purpose-built care home which has been designed to enable residents to live active and fulfilled lives, while also promoting independence. The home provides full-time residential, nursing and specialist dementia care for up to 65 older people in Whitstable, and incorporates space for hobby and leisure activities, including its own cinema, hairdressing salon and café.

For more information about Harrier Lodge, please call Customer Relations Manager, Theresa Mead, on 0203 918 2873, or email theresa.mead@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