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Creative Challenges - The Open College of the Arts

To find out more details about the transfer to The Open University see A New Chapter for OCA.

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Creative Challenges

Stay inside and stay inspired with weekly creative challenges from OCA.

To help you through the lockdown, we have developed a series of inventive, family friendly workshops to reignite your creative passion – developed with distance learning in mind!

Stay connected with your fellow students, share your creations with us on social media using #StayInsideStayInspired and learn something new.

Our workshop packs will be published right here on our #WeAreOCA blog every Monday and will include everything you need to get creative at home.

And if you want to carry on your creative education through this period, take a look at our online creative arts courses, helping you to Stay Inside and Stay Inspired.

Short Courses Personal Development Courses Foundation Courses

Watch this space for more fun activities!

Get stuck into our creative challenges:

Music and Maths 4: Probability and Composition thumb

Music and Maths 4: Probability and Composition

In the last blog post we looked at how strict processes can be used in composition, taking examples mostly from minimalist composers. In this post we’ll be looking at a more open-ended type of process: probabilistic decision making. In the process music we looked at last time, each rule had a single possible interpretation, exactly […]

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Big Garden Birdwatch 29-31 January thumb

Big Garden Birdwatch 29-31 January

For a lot of us, particularly here in Yorkshire, the weather so far this year has not exactly encouraged us to get outside. Whether it be rain or snow and ice, staying indoors often seems like the best option.  I would imagine though that a lot of us are staying inside more these days in […]

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OCA creative challenges: Making miniatures, the basics thumb

OCA creative challenges: Making miniatures, the basics

In this workshop we will look at using basic materials and techniques to create a selection of miniature pieces. These basic skills and small projects will open the doors to an entire miniature world of possibilities.

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OCA creative challenges: Interior design basics thumb

OCA creative challenges: Interior design basics

This workshop will focus on practical interior design for your own home, which can be applied to any scale or budget. We will cover design, decor, organisation and room models, and will look into the basics of colour, pattern and upcycling techniques.

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OCA creative challenges: Making poseable dolls thumb

OCA creative challenges: Making poseable dolls

In this workshop we will be looking at making a very basic art doll with a completely soft body and sculpted clay face, but the skills that you will learn by doing this can be applied to more complex and ambitious projects.

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OCA creative challenges: Sewing & embroidery – the basics thumb

OCA creative challenges: Sewing & embroidery – the basics

Whatever reason you have for wanting to learn to sew or embroider, this workshop will take you through from basic stitches to embroidery techniques, including writing styles and decorative finesse. Below you will find a step by step slideshow and a downloadable pdf. Enjoy and share your creations with us using #WeAreOCA. 

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Throwback Thursday: Where do you do it? thumb

Throwback Thursday: Where do you do it?

Four years ago we asked Where do you do it? Students, staff and tutors sent us images of their work spaces and we compiled them into the video below.

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OCA creative challenges: Claymation thumb

OCA creative challenges: Claymation

Claymation is the name given to stop-motion animation made using clay. Clay is an excellent material for animating with, not only because it’s possible to build wonderfully colourful and creative characters with it, but also because it’s much cheaper and more readily available than most puppet-making alternatives. 

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OCA creative challenges: Sculpting with clay thumb

OCA creative challenges: Sculpting with clay

We’re already on week 4 of our OCA creative challenges campaign. This week we’re providing you with an introduction to sculpting with clay.

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Throwback Thursday: Your views thumb

Throwback Thursday: Your views

In 2014 OCA students contributed to a collaborative film project by artist Gillian Wearing called Your Views. You can watch the result below. With the world in lock down it seems fitting to share the views from our window once again.

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