Oxfordshire Adult Learning’s art tutor helps hospital residents get creative

A new partnership project between Oxford Health and Oxfordshire Adult Learning is bringing part-time art lesson opportunities to residents of the Oxford Health community hospitals.

The series of art sessions, spanning across five weeks, are part of the wider Creating with Care programme which runs at the Wallingford, Witney, Didcot, Bicester, Abingdon and Oxford community hospitals. Over the past year, the programme has brought dance, mime, film, music, visual arts, crafts, cabaret, mosaic making, photography and exhibitions to patients, family and staff. Since January 2019 there has been 188 arts sessions with nearly 1,200 attendances.

Grant Waters, a well exhibited portrait artist and member of the Oxford Art Society, tutors for Oxfordshire Adult Learning’s drawing and painting part-time courses and gave up his time to help teach on the Creating with Care programme. With a BA Hons in Professional Studies in Education and over twenty years’ experience teaching with Oxfordshire Adult Learning, Grant specialises in oils, acrylics, watercolours, landscapes and life drawing, and passed on these skills to residents at the hospitals.

Owls were the focus of the most recent session, with some beautiful masterpieces being produced, which now decorate hospital rooms.

“The results are wonderful!” said Creating with Care Arts Co-ordinator, Angela Conlan.