#HurrayForPlay

If you listened to my recent podcast episode with Xanthe Berkeley you might already have been bitten by the project bug. She spoke about it so inspiringly that I immediately felt like I needed to embrace something new, and from the emails and messages I’ve been receiving, I know lots of you did too.

So we thought, why not do something all together?

Embracing Xanthe’s key message of play, and some of the seemingly opposing elements to our styles, we’ve come up with a month-long project we’d love you to join in on.

Play throughout May

The aim is to play – that is, to mess about, not take it too seriously, take risks and do things you normally wouldn’t make time for. We’ve got some prompts lined up, but feel free to interpret them as loosely as you like – we all know play stops being fun when there are too many rules involved! And remember (and I’m talking to myself more than anyone here) that the entire purpose is the playing – so as long as you’ve done that, you’ve achieved the objective. Even if you hate the result.

Each week there will be two opposite directions to focus your creative play and a suggestion to explore something, like a technique or subject. You can use the prompt literally or make it your own. This is just the starting point and something to get you excited about creating… there are no rules, it’s just about play.

With each weekly project you’re welcome to explore one of the topics or both… you can stick to one if it’s familiar to you and you’d like to dive into deeper into that theme or you can go with the opposite one, where you can experiment in a different area and perhaps discover a different way of playing. You can even try both! It’s entirely up to you.

There’s no imperative to share what you create – it’s fine even if you immediately delete it – but if you do happen to make something you love, then of course, we’d like to see that too.
You can share anywhere on social media with the tag #HurrayForPlay (that’s the British spelling, to avoid any confusion ?). Or you could blog it, tweet it, throw it up on Instagram Stories, print it and send it to your best friend as a postcard… whatever feels good for you!

And if you have any friends who you think would enjoy joining in, then send them on over.

We’ll announce each week’s prompt on our channels, but as we all know in these algorithm-obsessed times, there’s no guarantee you’ll get to see it! So we’re also going to send out reminders via email.

If you’d like to get them – once a week, with a little bit of inspiration included to get you started – just stick your details in the box below.

This week’s theme

Week one is playing with Colour and/or Neutrals.

We’re often drawn to a particular colour palette in our work. Use this week to play with photographing colours you love or dip your toes into a different spectrum of tones.

It’s also the perfect excuse to play with props –  they’re often the easiest way to control the colour palette in any scene, and as Philippa showed me when we recorded her podcast episode, there’s always fun stuff to be found via ‘domestic foraging’.

Will you be joining in? Any questions? And which side of the prompt are you most drawn to on instinct?