At ART CLUB this month we got involved with the Manchester Stones  project that has been happening around Manchester this summer. It involves painting stones then hiding them for someone else to find, they in turn can hide them again after taking a picture and posting it in the Manchester Stones online group on Facebook.

We had lots of fun choosing our stones and then painting all sorts of different patterns and pictures on them. ! we had hearts, emojis, flowers, rainbows, spots, minions, ladybirds and many more!!

With a heavy downpour mid art club we had to be quick to protect all our freshly painted stones under some tables and thankfully they only need a few touch ups before we varnished them!

The chalkboard gates are still proving really popular in the alley and are used by a variety of children when playing out as well as at art club where we always make sure we have chalk available!

Once the stones had dried and all the info stickers were placed on the back we varnished them several times and then got to hide them around Old Trafford! Some have already been found and re hidden, have you spotted one yet?

( here’s a clue as to where to look….Hullard Park, Henrietta Street, Prestage Street, Shrewsbury Street…)

#thebackgallerystone

August’s art club was a relaxed affair in the sunshine making kites and bunting from canvas.

The children enjoyed creating their designs with felt tips and Oil pastels, then turned them into kites with straws and sting and decorated them with ribbons. 

The Alley provided the perfect place to run up and down allowing the wind to catch the kites and watch the ribbon trails fly. 

We also threaded our bunting together and had the usual chalks out, someone even created a treasure hunt on all the chalk gates! A donated cake from a kind neighbour was shared around too!  Mmmmmm…..

 Next Art Club is on Saturday 9th September 2-3pm in the alley!! 

THE BACK gALLErY had a fantastic day being a part of and bringing together two billiant events in Old Trafford. We ran a Bird spotting Treasure Trail from the #OTpicnic to the #OTcommunitymural where we hosted a bird making workshop and gave out bird feeder prizes for the treasure trail kindly donated by HUBBUB.

There were 15 birds along the trail, each one having a word on it and pictures and names of two local birds seen in and around Old Trafford. Participants had to follow the trail, (using their decorated binoculars) collect the names of all the birds and fill in the missing spaces in the secret message  to gain the treasure which was located where the Community Mural was taking place. The secret message being the Poem by Lemn Sissay that will be part of the mural along with several different birds.

Everyone was very excited to get their treasure! All these bird feeders will hopefully encourage even more birds to come to Old Trafford. 

At the Community Mural, being painted by the amazing and local Mural Life,  there was a real party atmosphere with food, music, lots of chalking and a bouncy castle.

Lots of people ( both Children and adults) enjoyed making their own birds from Milk cartons, just like the bird trail ones, decorating them with tissue paper and ribbon at our workshop.

It was a fantastic event to be part of and the Mural will be finished off this week. Check out Mural Life ‘s page to keep up to date with the progress. 

To see a timelapse of the first part of the Mural  being painted click here.

Its very exciting to see more Art being created and displayed around Old Trafford and THE BACK gALLEry hope to encourage more of this in the future.

THE BACK gALLErY are incredibly excited to be involved in the #OTpicnic and the #OTcommunitymural this Saturday 12-3pm.

We will be hosting a bird treasure trail leading from the picnic to the mural where you can try and spot 15 birds,look out for some native Old Tarfford birds, solve the puzzle and win a prize whilst getting to see the mural by the fantastic and local mural life  being created and you can even make your own bird too!! The trail also can also work the other way because you don’t want to miss out on all the fun at the picnic!!

All you need to do is pick up and decorate some binoculars at the picnic ( Seymour park school field, Northumberland road) and grab your sheet to fill in…

Follow the trail from one bird to the next, noting down the words and the birds…

Get to the end of the trail by Prestage street where you can see the mural in progress, get some refreshments and make your own bird from a plastic milk carton!

And of course see if you have won a prize!!!

So come on down this Saturday 12-3pm, rain or shine!!!

THE BACK gALLErY enjoyed a wonderful day being part of Old Trafford Open gardens , showing off our lovely alley and gallery and getting everyone involved in making flowery flower pots from old plastic botttles, planting salad leaves, creating a community Tapestry and getting crafty making decorative necklaces. The children also enjoyed selling lemonade and cakes too!

We managed to raise over £70 at THE BACK gALLErY and The whole Open gardens event’s total is over £1,900. The money is going to Medicins Sans Frontiers (Doctors without borders) which is a great cause.

Thankyou everyone who came along!!!!

Please note that due to this event and our workshop and bird trail on 22nd July in conjunction with the OT Picnic and OT community Mural there will be no art club on Saturday 8th July.

The week the weather has not been kind to us, there has been heavy rain and strong winds which stopped us getting out into the alley until Friday when we joined both this week’s activities together in one (mostly sunny) afternoon!!! 

We played with bubbles….

And water…..

Drawing targets with chalk, practicing our squirting and aiming skills as well as chucking water balloons into circles and of course ending in a water fight! 

We painted and coloured some Manchester bees that will become part of our ART CLUB group woven tapestry…

And we also had some facepainting fun!! 

It was brilliant to be out in the alley again and over the course of ALLEY WEEK  (or 2) there has been an amazing sense of community and everyone coming together! 

THANK YOU ALL! 

Unfortunately due to the weather we are postponing ART CLUB on 10th June but we will reschedule this soon to create a large scale woven tapestry celebrating all we have done in the alley! 

So it rained today, but that didn’t stop us getting out into the alley for an obstacle course, ball games, hula hooping and skipping, even if we did get a bit wet! 

An obstacle course with 8 different activities was designed and set up by one of the older children including a slide, some hurdles and a balance beam! We practiced our target skills by throwing balls into buckets, got energetic by star jumping and even got our hoover on doing a victory dance!!! 

We all had fun, even though it was rather damp, and it wasn’t just the children improving their skills at skipping, tennis and badminton, the adults had a go too!! 

Today has definitely been proof that you can still have fun outdoors when it’s raining, although we would really like the sun back for our ALLEY WEEK activities next week please!! 

Next week’s ALLEY WEEK activities are: 

Tuesday 1.30-3.30pm Facepainting, colouring and chalking.

Thursday 1.30-3.30pm water and bubbles play! 

Saturday 2-3pm ART CLUB where we will be creating a giant tapestry weaving together all we have done over ALLEY WEEK  (or 2!) 

All welcome! Do come by! 

We have had a wonderful afternoon making all sorts of amazing creations and getting to buy to some homemade creations too! 

The sun was shining on us today whilst everyone got stuck into making brilliant junk models! We had all sorts of cardboard tubes, plastic containers, boxes, sticky tape, egg cartons and decorations…. and the children and parents were definitely inventive with what was created; aeroplanes, rockets, stages, computers, boats, cats and more! 

Everyone was extremely proud of what they made and it was great to see the children taking home lots of fabulous models. 

This afternoon we also got to enjoy a ‘creative world’ stall put on by some of our children who served homemade lemonade and cakes, and sold hamma bead models and bookmarks. They have decided that 50% of what they made from donations will be going to the ‘we❤manchester’ fund.  

It was another brilliant event in the alley. Our next ALLEY WEEK event is on Friday 2nd June 1.30-3.30pm and we will be playing all sorts of ball games, hula hooping and will have a slide out too! We hope to see you there!