Get creative this Saturday in Tamworth Town Centre

The countdown is on to FREE arts activities for people of all ages, when Art Attack arrives in Tamworth town centre this Saturday, October 6.
Tamworth Arts & Events team and Ankerside Shopping Centre are linking up with ‘The Big Draw Festival 2018’ to bring the world’s biggest drawing festival to the town for a second year running.
Art Attack is open to all ages and abilities, offering people the opportunity to ‘have a go’ at art with a difference. Professional artists and illustrators will be on hand to guide and assist all budding artists, allowing people to express their creativity in an exciting and original way. Activities include paint ball art, swinging on a pendulum paint pourer, art in the dark and painting with remote control cars.
Art Attack is linked to the international Big Draw Festival campaign and brings a huge variety of free arts activities to the town, to encourage people of all ages to get creative. The Tamworth event was so successful in its first year that the Arts & Events team scooped the Big Draw’s International ‘Community Participatory and Libraries Award’ for 2017 and will be looking to defend that title in 2018.
This year The Big Draw Festival’s theme is ‘Play’ and as part of the International Big Draw Festival initiative we want everyone to get playful with their creativity.
Activities are planned to start at 10am – 4pm and include:
Urban Canvas
Building on the popular success of last year’s urban canvas, this traditional street art activity is for anyone who wants to pick up a stick of chalk, grab a comfy cushion and get stuck in to drawing on the pavement, underneath the historic Town hall.   
Thinking about the theme - ‘Play’- participants will be encouraged to ‘free draw’ as well as considering street games such as Hopscotch and Noughts and Crosses.

All other activities will be based inside Ankerside Shopping Centre, sponsors of the event:
Art in the dark
Step inside the dark and help brighten up the space with Ultra Violet painting. Grab a brush and get painting with specially designed UV reactive paint on paper, brought to life under black lights. Contribute to the collaborative gallery exhibition - a fantastic ultraviolet, fluorescent wonderland.
Tape That
Join in the fun using colourful electrical tape to line the walls, ceilings and floor to create colourful shapes and a giant artwork. Step inside the drawing, walk around it and even jump between the lines.
‘Big Draw Play Store’
New for 2018 ‘Big Draw, Play Store’ is a mix of unusual creative activities including:  
Spiro style - go wild on the Spirograph tables and create countless, individual and colourful spiral designs with the geometric drawing toy.
Pendulum painting - pour, twirl, swing and play your way to your own masterpiece by swinging on a pendulum paint pourer and create a gravity-fuelled floor painting.
The paint pot pit - use a converted remote controlled car to ‘paint pit-stops’ with the paint roller wheels. Test your skills by driving around a set track, creating paintings as you go!   Bubble pop – create amazing and beautiful paintings on paper using ecofriendly, bubble blowers, made from recycled materials and coloured bubble solution.     
Paint ball - use hand held paint balls to throw at the floor and wall mounted targets. Create an explosion of multi-coloured and collaborative paintings.
Paint race - Use paint filled syringes, pick a colour and get ready to race your paint down the wall to make a rainbow cascade.
Andy Nash, Visual Artist for Art Attack, said: ‘Being invited back to take part in 'Art Attack' is an amazing privilege for me, as it gives me a fantastic opportunity to develop my public art practice and to build on the huge successes of last year's incredible event. In particular it allows for collaboration with a wide range of people of all ages and abilities.

“With new and improved art activities this year, I am really looking forward to inviting all of the good people from my home Town to explore, play and have a great deal of fun with 'pendulum paint', 'RC paint tracks', the spectacular and popular 'Art in the dark' and much more.
“The Big Draw is a great leveller and is a brilliant way of developing the confidence, creativity and imagination of all those involved. Above all else, I think I am most looking forward to the Town centre once again becoming a diverse arena for the visual arts, the smiles on the faces of our young ones on a mission of creative discovery, and everyone working toward the same creative goal through the act of play.”
The Big Draw (formally The Campaign for Drawing) was founded in 2000 and is an arts education charity that promotes visual literacy and the universal language of drawing as a tool for learning, expression and invention.
The world’s biggest drawing festival was brought to Tamworth for the first time last year and Tamworth Borough Council’s Arts & Events team were honoured with the ‘Community, Participatory and Libraries Award’, sponsored by The Arts Society..
Throughout the year, The Big Draw demonstrates the social, economic and health benefits that drawing can bring and provides opportunities for everyone to access them.
Cllr John Chesworth, Cabinet member for Culture and Operational Services, said: “This inspirational event offers a unique and exciting opportunity for people of all ages to take part in ‘art with a difference.’
“It will involve the local community joining together and experimenting with art and maybe trying something new and creative, while celebrating the town’s heritage.  I really hope that everyone will get involved and make this a breath-taking spectacle.”