Kaiser and Kiwi are my dogs and my best friends and there is a saying:- “The more people I meet, the more I like my dogs.”

Kathleen Clarke

What motivated me the most is the way I have done my work. The way it appears and also how Others would find my art and if the would find it interesting

Konde Kumnu

I like drawing pictures because it gives me a goal in life. It helps me concentrate; it gives me a sense of achievement and makes me feel good about myself and my life My drawings are based on my memories, the things I have seen and the places I have visited.

Mark Bishop

I was motivated and inspired at the day centre in art therapy to do this piece of work. I used different mediums, e.g., pencil, watercolour, paints and shiny paper. I started from a basic black and white picture and framed it using a triptych. My piece has become a lot better since my first lesson.

Valerie Rattray

I was inspired by my past experiences and have taught myself to use Photoshop c.s. My works portray all aspects in my life. ‘Eyes’ represents my soul inside and out. ‘ Mad Mav’ = my mother showing her pain and experience during my periods of illness. ‘Guns and Knives’ represents the number of operations I went through as a child.

Tricia Aljue

I enjoy using colour; I like the decorative effect of colours. I find some colours help to brighten up my mood when I feel down

Elizabeth Williams

I just get a piece of paper and look at it, and then think it out, using my imagination and materials.

David. J. Lucioni

To me fine art is therapeutic and fun and that is what Motivates me. This is my first attempt working on canvas and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In this work I was inspired by an interesting view of the back yard of the art room.

Romanus Lele

I find it hard to talk and I find art groups helpful as it is easier to express myself and through painting and needlework. It’s a way of talking but you use colours or patterns instead of words. Its also a way to build trust.

Gulfam Inayat

We wanted to do a painting together and try out new techniques.

Margot-Rita

I felt I saw a person in my main pattern that I made on larger paper.

Garry Smith

On the Nile is an oil painting of a boy from ancient Egypt Collecting water on the Nile as the moon is rising. I am interested in ancient history and historic cultures.

Jamie Phillips

I liked reading fairy Stories when I was younger, and seeing cosy pictures of children playing. The picture I drew inside the house with the children playing and the two cats and the dog outside in the car seem like a joyful, idyllic scene. Other patterns and shapes I have done and put together are some of the different pictures you can put together with different objects.

Joan Fahey

Both drawings are based on my memory of a holiday spent in the Sussex Downs. This is the first time I have exhibited my work.

Gregory Zajac

I picked up watercolour painting two year’s ago because I always wanted to paint farmhouse sites which I can paint and be proud of. What inspired me to paint was to feel relaxed and happy and help others understand my art.

Solful Maih

The Mosaic paintings come from Neal’s long tem interest in tiles and his admiration for Antoni Gaudi. The ‘Garden’ is the result of a chance remark. He and another school governor were discussing ‘greening’ the playground of the Jenny Hammond Primary School to make it more interesting for the pupils. When asked what he had in mind, he said he envisaged something like a Douanier Rousseau painting. “Well why don’t you paint a picture of it?” said the other governor. So he did, but the idea just grew and grew and, a year later, this is the result!

Neal Chubb

I like drawing and painting birds and fish because of the variety of colours. I love colours, mixing and blending. The portrait of the girl was an exercise done in the art studio.

Sonia Olukoya

I got motivated to so this work because I wanted to improve my skills and was inspired by work done by others. I like to perfect the shapes and different colours.

Azra Sulfana

I find this work helps me express myself within the group

Padmini Yanumbal

Ken Broadbear left school at 15 years of age to deliver artwork for a busy commercial art studio in London. He was soon producing artwork himself eventually working as a freelance from 1970. After a nervous breakdown in 1980, he left the advertising industry and only then took up painting as a hobby. Since then he has worked in portraiture, dabbled in abstract art, stained glass, clay modelling, woodcarving and in acrylics and oils. He changed his name to Ken Broadbear in 1999 and took up membership of think arts in 2007

William Broadbear

I enjoy the challenge of using art materials, however photography is my passion. I capture all my images through the lens of my mobile phone and am then able to edit and manipulate each image via Photoshop on my pc. Through the arch was captured in a garden in Leytonstone, which fills me with an inner peace because of its beauty. However I wanted to look out from within the arch in order to capture images that are not normally viewed by the human eye. Although taken on the same day, I found that the two images seemed to depict two opposing seasons, being winter and spring, with the arch in full bloom for the summer. I felt that by putting these three images together I was able to encapsulate autumn with the surrounding frame, being the beginnings of the decaying period, thus dying trees become frames.

Pat Moore

‘I used to work at the British Museum and this is based on my studies’

Christine Waters

I found the whole experience of working with this piece of Cherry Wood very challenging because not only was the wood very cracked, I was also at a very low point in my life! I have always loved working with wood as it is still ‘Living’. I have followed the grain to form its natural shape. Filling in the cracks reminded me so much of my past and the scars that they have left. This piece reminds me of my own struggles in life, difficulties, hardships, losses and illnesses.

Caroline Hilder

The two images of New Dawn continue from last year’s photographs. A very special person grew this rose from a cutting… The painting of the word Strategy has been an important part of art therapy for me, by discovering ‘hunting down’ strategies this work reinforces remembering these specific ways of coping.

Kate Pennington

I was inspired by this artwork as a result of art therapy and an art foundation course. I managed to come to terms with my disabilities in mental health and being in my wheelchair. It showed me that disability does not have to be a barrier.

Teresa Lee Smith

The films Shrek inspired donkey and Puss in Boots; while Swirl depicts the mood my mind is in from time to time.

Victoria Messembird

Fascination with light shinning through coloured glass. This is my first attempt, and I am looking forward to creating more elaborate pieces

Joan Stephens

These Legs show a lady dancing under glass. I am learning lino cutting and sewing at the moment. I am a retired srn.

Joyce Whittle

Feed the birds brings the process of survival for all living creatures closer to the minds eye, (Taken in Cardiff Wales). I stood in the same spot for ages waiting to capture this image. As my arm became tired and dropped slightly, so the birds appeared and I pushed the button.

Pat Moore

Solitaire encompasses, the tears that have fallen from my eyes in a world that I experience as ‘the ultimate Aloneness’ a world in which difference is rejected, feelings dismissed by those who feel they are righteous enough to judge, and friends hard to find for fear that ‘the mental health’ will embarrass or rub off on them. Sadly, the mental health is part of the person, yet not the whole, acceptance is the key, but very often not found by me.

Pat Moore

The Knight is battling for the right for freedom. He had once battled dragons only using his axe. He was a Kings man laying down his life for his King and Queen and country. A stallion a white charger 20 hands high. Battle armour gleaming shinning in the sun. It waits for him to call saying his name

Gary Smith

Therapeutic Clay Group The work in this cabinet has been produced in the above group by a variety of individuals. I find the group very helpful, as it allows me to relax and to bring out that which I hide inside. I love the feel of the clay and the way in which you can manipulate and sculpt the clay through the hands. It s almost as if my hands hold the feelings that need to escape from inside. In addition I find it easier to voice things using the work as a focus.

Pat Moore

Workshop based on Masks from different cultures around the world, as part of a world mental health event held at the Vestry House Museum, Walthamstow, October 2007. Workshop facilitated by Amanda Doige – Local Ceramic Artist. “What we choose to reveal – and what we choose to hide”

I enjoy the challenge of using art materials, however photography is my passion. I capture all my images through the lens of my mobile phone and am then able to edit and manipulate each image via Photoshop on my pc. Through the arch was captured in a garden in Leytonstone, which fills me with an inner peace because of its beauty. However I wanted to look out from within the arch in order to capture images that are not normally viewed by the human eye. Although taken on the same day, I found that the two images seemed to depict two opposing seasons, being winter and spring, with the arch in full bloom for the summer. I felt that by putting these three images together I was able to encapsulate autumn with the surrounding frame, being the beginnings of the decaying period, thus dying trees become frames.

Pat Moore