Is your child expressing an interest in developing their creative potential?
At Future Creatives, our main is aim is to support the next generation of creative kids and teens exploring their creativity outside of the classroom and helping teenagers develop their skills for GCSEs, A-levels and beyond. We got in touch with Elizabeth(9) and her mother, Judith, to learn about her experience at Future Creatives.
Elizabeth already has her heart set on a career in the arts.
“I really really want to be at Art college exploring new creative ideas. I would like to be a painter and maybe design costumes. To assist her creative ambitions her mother, Judith, did some research into the range of courses available at UAL Short Courses. Judith described how she was “delighted to find such a broad range of age appropriate, fun, creatively challenging online classes at a reasonable cost.” Elizabeth
Since discovering UAL Short Courses and Future Creatives, Elizabeth has frequently joined an array of courses and regularly shares her work with us. We got in touch with Elizabeth to find out more about how Future Creatives courses are helping her prepare for her future.
The young artist approached her first workshop with a keenness to “learn more about what it would be like to be an art school student and learn a variety of techniques.”
Elizabeth soon began learning a diverse range of new skills as she joined Expressive Watercolour, Creative Lettering, Experimental Drawing and Collage workshops.
She reflected on how she feels “more confident” since taking the courses and that they made her want to “express herself more in her paintings and art pieces”.
Elizabeth has certainly enjoyed the freedom offered by Future Creatives lessons, space where learners are encouraged to work from prompts but ultimately find their own path and creative vision through experimentation and play, an approach that she recognises as different to her primary school education:
“At school, we are in a big class group and have to do the same thing. In Future Creatives lessons, we get more attention as there are less students and we get to do our own thing and have our own ideas.” - Elizabeth
Judith elaborated on this point explaining that whilst Elizabeth’s local primary school is very supportive of her artistic talent, “the curriculum does not allow much time for art lessons”.
The lockdown enabled Elizabeth to “increase her time spent on her hobbies and passions of drawing and painting.” This involved joining a whole host of online classes and as a result, becoming a part of the ever-expanding global Future Creatives community.
Judith recognised that although in this challenging time Elizabeth “missed her friends” and “became increasingly anxious”, taking part in regular creative tasks helped her to “her to feel part of a wider community, manage her anxieties and find positivity.”
Elizabeth has a natural curiosity for learning new techniques. She has expressed an interest in developing her skills in sculpture, costume design and pointillist painting.
Her interest is possibly an extension of her love of Claude Monet and Impressionism. If she ever met him, she would ask “what he thinks of our modern buildings and what is his favourite time of day to paint is”. Elizabeth is in tune with her local art scene too, she appreciates the local architecture in Saffron Walden, some of which has seen intervention from local artists such as Sonia Villiers, and uses this as inspiration for her own work.
Elizabeth’s confidence is growing with each class she attends. She is excited to take the next steps in her creative education and can’t wait to start secondary school so she can dedicate more time to making art. She’s already visited the art rooms and is ready to be “inspired” by a new environment.
For her, being an artist means "you can be and do anything creative.”
Her enthusiasm combined with an ever-increasing “confidence in her abilities” and faith that “her ideas are worth investigating” discovered during her Future Creatives courses will make Elizabeth a formidable force in pursuing her “dreams of attending art school” and anything else she wishes to achieve beyond her time in education.
Feeling inspired? Check out our latest range of courses to enhance their existing skillset, to learn new techniques, make friends and have a whole load of fun with Future Creatives!
