Black Country Voyages at Brownhills Canal Festival

Sunday 28th June at Brownhills Canal Festival

On Sunday, we took the boat to our second year at Brownhills Canal Festival. After a few mishaps with a marquee (and some wind!) we decided on running some drawing workshops on the boat – the new tables in the boat meant that anyone wanting to come and draw could look directly onto the canal and take inspiration from their surroundings, and from the flowers and ornaments left around the boat by our current resident artist, Jacques. We were encouraging children and their parents to draw onto postcards for us, which were then pinned up in the windows once finished, and to leave their details with us – for the purpose of sending them a surprise postcard drawn by another visitor over the day as well as some one off artwork made by the youth programme! It turned out to be hugely popular – we lost track of how many people were coming and going fairly quickly – and we managed to collect some beautiful artwork which will be sent back to all our visitors in the very near future!

Ella Thomas

Ikon Youth Programme