Fairbairn Way hoarding awaits glow up.
2nd Chatteris Cubs
2nd Chatteris Cubs were approached by Jack Wycherley back in October to design some artwork to go on the hoarding of the Fairbairn Way development in Chatteris. In taking on this task, Katie Leach, Assistant Club Leader, thought about how they could tie it to activities that go towards the Cubs badgework as there are many different badges that Cubs can earn.
Awards and Badges
There are Challenge Awards which are multi part badges that can only be completed over a time and alongside other Cubs and there are Activity Badges that focus on individual activities, interests and hobbies that can be completed with other Cubs or by a Cub on their own. For the artwork task they were assigned they decided that this should be used to work towards a Challenge Award and an Activity Badge. For the ‘Our World Challenge Badge’ the Cubs have to make a community map so they thought they would incorporate a map into the artwork. For part of the Artist Activity Badge the Cubs have to draw or paint a picture.
Once they knew they were looking towards making a community map of the tow, they knew this had to incorporate the map itself and some buildings within Chatteris. They needed to show buildings that were associated with services such as the town museum, library, hotels, churches, estate agent and also wanted the map to reflect the town's wonderful heritage including some key features such as the town's bandstand, clock, war memorial and Chatteris shield/crest.
Inspired by local artist
They were unsure how to present their map in an interesting way, so approached Artist, Ricki Outis, who had led a Fenland community screen printing art project the previous year. The Cubs had really engaged with Ricki previously so felt she would be best placed to help with ideas and inspire the Cubs on this project. Ricki came up with the idea of having a colour background as a back drop to black lines denoting the map and black lined drawings of the buildings.
How the project unfolded
To prepare for the task they took photographs of key buildings in town which the Cubs could then use to draw the buildings from. They also blew up a street map that the Cubs could cut out for the roads. It took two full Cubs sessions in November and December to prepare the artwork. During the art sessions they split up into two groups. One group prepared the coloured background by tearing up pieces of coloured paper and gluing it onto A3 boards (these boards would eventually be taped together) and they also cut out the map in black and wrote the street names on. The other group drew the building's using the photographs to copy from. Ricki gave them guidance on drawing including using two different thicknesses of black pen when drawing buildings. A few of the Cubs were nervous about drawing and didn't think they had the ability, but with encouragement and guidance the end product was brilliant. All the Cubs really engaged and enjoyed this activity and they hope everyone who sees it in all its glory on the site hoarding, enjoys looking at it in passing.
Burmor thank the 2nd Chatteris Cubs for their handy work and look forward to displaying this on our site hoarding for the duration of the project.
