The Tree of 1000 Stories

This is a time laps of our latest  drawing workshop, which was held at Birmingham Central Library.

Book of Birmingham

Come along this week or next to join us at The Birmingham Book festival in the library. The 1000 stories team invites you to participate in our latest art installation, the Book of Birmingham. Share you personal experience and tell your story through words and images using a range of simple mark making and drawing techniques, before adding your contribution to the flying pages of the Book of Birmingham installation in the pop-up bookshop.

Spend some time or simply drop in for a moment to add your ‘visual voice’ to the many fragments. Join us, let your story be part of the installation, be creative and make your mark!

The Birmingham Book Festival runs from the 4^th October until 13^th October at the Birmingham Library, weekdays 10am – 5.30pm, Saturdays 9am – 4.30pm, Sunday the library is closed. 

Find more information about the Festival here.

The view from the outside in

Eight journeys from Sutton to Centenary Square

After the group of illustration students had hand-made their own drawing books and decided on their own individual ways of recording their surroundings using a range of illustration process, the students came on a day trip to walk from Spaghetti Junction to the new library at Centenary Square in Birmingham. While walking alongside Birmingham and Fazeley Canal the students did not only stop at various points of their journey to record their urban surroundings, but they also had the opportunity to find out more about the vital role that the canal system had played in Birmingham's industrial past. Each student's outcome is one of the many stories that will be told over the course of the next year as part of Outline's initiative called City of 1000 stories.

The group of illustration students at the start of the day's journey.

 Students recording their urban surroundings in their hand-made books.

 Individual pages taken from the final books.

Two examples of final books, which record in a visual way the journey the students made from Sutton Campus to the new library at Centenary Square.

Our final destination for the day was the new library, which is currently being build at Centenary Square.

Unusual Journey

A large panoramic drawing exploring the less obvious side of Birmingham during a walk underneath spaghetti junction, telling a different story to the glossy outward facing refurbished Birmingham. The drawing is a large horizontal piece about 12 inches high.

Another unusual journey following random pieces of battered pipework collaged together from different sites around the city. Not evident from the photograph is the scale of this drawing which is over 6ft high. Drawings produced by the first year level 3 illustration group .