Although I love teaching all ages, I find working with young children particularly rewarding. I plan activities to suit the current curriculum needs and work on both short and long term projects and residencies.

Included on this page are images of some of the projects that I have worked on in collaboration with communities and schools.
Please contact me if you wish to discuss your ideas.

Altogether 28 community children were involved in workshops over a four-month period creating work, using the theme of apples, trees, seeds and leaves. Techniques covered in the project included drawing, painting, printing, stitching, bonding and foiling and involved the use of both paper and fabric. Adults joined the children to stitch the completed pieces to the ground velvet fabric. Altogether it became a true community project with adults and children dropping in as and when there were able, to help the project along. The completed panels were mounted by a few adults and the display cases and delightful apple handles were made by a member of the community. The panels are on permanent display in Lingen Village Hall, Herefordshire.

“This project arose from the Lingen Millennium Project in an informal way, but became a major project in its own right. Initially Bobby evolved a design and plan to encompass the very vague and disparate ideas of a few interested adults. Workshops were organised and run by Bobby with children covering the full spectrum of age and ability. The full weight of design, execution of the work and discipline of the children fell on Bobby with exceptional results in relation to both children’s participation and the work produced. The project proved to be very demanding and it was very much to Bobby’s credit that she was able to motivate adults and children and provide ambience for such creative work to be accomplished”.

This Millennium Project involved the community in making three banners, celebrating the Past, Present and Future of Much Wenlock. It was a true community project involving, children, their parents, grandparents and teachers for the local school. An initial taster session, attended by 54 participants resulted in lively ideas being generated for the format of the banners and the techniques to be employed. Three beautiful, colourful silk banners all featuring original designs, were worked in bonded appliqué with hand and machine stitching. Digital images of the participants decorated the borders of the banners. These banners are on display in Much Wenlock County Primary School.

Made in the Middle is a Craftspace Touring initiative to showcase and promote professional designer makers in the region. As part of this project in 2002, I was invited to work with residents in sheltered accommodation, by providing them with the opportunity to enjoy and experience my particular craft. It was immensely rewarding to work with the residents and everyone had a wonderful panel to take home at the end of the session.

I was commissioned to work with a group of 24 children over a full week in creating a site specific piece of work, but one that could be transferable as the existing school was moving to a new site. The piece was to be designed so that it could hang on the wall, be free standing, or folded in someway to accommodate different spaces. Ideas, colour schemes and effects were generated from studies and investigations made at the Ironbridge Museum and Enginuity. Card mock-up of ideas were considered with the children being involved with all processes and techniques. These included dyeing fabrics, painting bondaweb, foiling, roller printing and construction techniques with the children working individually and in smaller groups.

Stiperstone Project - Spring 2000
Long Mynd Project - March 2004

“Bobby Britnell has worked with us at Wistanstow Primary School on two occasions, to create original artwork using her considerable expertise in the medium of textiles and embroidery. Both projects were supported by the Shropshire Wildlife Trust.

“The first project was Spring 2000, and involved visits and follow-up art work on the Stiperstones, a famous Shropshire landmark. Bobby came to school to help and advise the staff in planning and determining outcomes for the project. She devised art activities for each class taking the ages of the children into account. The Reception and Year 1 children produced a wall hanging with collage of fabric and natural materials to interpret the landscape, whilst the older children produced individual pieces of weaving and embroidery looking at detail at the skyline of the landscape and the flora of the area. The results were stunning and were mentioned as being exceptional in our Ofsted report of 2001.

“The second project involved visits to the Long Mynd, another famous Shropshire landmark in Spring 2004. This time Bobby and the children produced one piece of work taking the distinctive skyline of the mountain range as a starting point and dividing it up into squares. The older children dyed the material and then covered the squares with the fabric and built up the background. They covered smaller squares in dyed fabric which the Year 2/3 class had hand embroidered with plants and animals they found in and by the mountain streams. The youngest children identified sheep as being the most obvious animals on the hills and they printed a border of sheep to edge the mural. The whole effect was a patchwork of colour with amazing detail. The skill levels involved were considerable and Bobby worked hard to ensure that every child could point out their individual contribution to the whole project. The collage is still in pride of place on our hall wall (2009).

“I can recommend Bobby Britnell to you as a very talented and professional artist who has brilliant ideas and exceptional skills. Her work with us has been greatly admired and the children involved remember her projects with enthusiasm and pride”.

Clare Reynolds, Head Teacher, Wistanstow C.E.P.School Summer 2008

The brief for this project was to work with the whole school in producing one or more hangings/panels to hang in the local church, but ones that could also be used in other venues and spaces as required. Each hanging was to focus on a season - winter, spring, summer and autumn. The juniors dyed fabrics in four different colour ways to reflect colours appropriate to the seasons, and each of these colours ways was also graded to provide a full range of changing colours. Painted bondaweb and foiling were applied to the fabrics for added for textural aspects and interest. Each was made up into a full length hanging with frayed edges.

Originally each hanging was to feature a particular animal/insect etc, which related specifically to each season, such as lambs for spring, and the infants were to be responsible for carrying out this part of the project. These initial plans altered as the project got underway, with the infants' work being presented separately.

The infants investigated the insects: dragonflies, beetles, mini beasts, etc. and also included studies of birdlife, wildlife and farm animals as seen in the surrounding environment. Clear line drawings were made in pencil, which were then outlined carefully in fibre pen. These drawings were transferred to the fabric that had been dyed by the juniors, by placing them underneath the dyed fabric square against a window acting as a light source. A permanent coloured fabric pen was used for this process. The infants also carefully created a fringed edge all around their completed designs to match the larger hangings.To accompany this, the infants made ‘Season Collages’ out of painted papers depicting their lovely drawings of animals and insects.