Westbury Arts Centre is launching a new series of workshops for the creatively curious led by local artist Olivia Mansfield

Westbury Arts Centre
Jul 10
2 min read

Westbury Arts Centre, Milton Keynes, is launching a new series of six workshops running monthly from September 2025 for the creatively curious led by local artist Olivia Mansfield.

The workshop series: Creative Art: experimentation in drawing, painting and collage will offer a safe and supportive environment for participants’ creative play and experimentation.

 Olivia explained that one of the goals is to help people “give themselves permission to play and explore, letting the head be quiet while the hands do the work.”

The workshops, which will have a different theme each month are designed both for those who have not previously attended art classes and want to try a new creative experience, and those who have done some art previously and want to focus on personal creativity and exploration.

The tutor, a graduate from Central St Martins and Goldsmiths, University of London is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores themes of myth, legend, folklore and symbolism and encompasses abstract, botanical and figurative elements.

Olivia says of her own approach to creating: “When I paint, I try to be as loose and free as I can be, a lot like an automatic drawing, I will allow my hand and the brush to move intuitively across the surface. Images, figures and places all become more acutely defined as I go. Very rarely will I start a painting knowing what it will look like at the end, it’s all in the process.”

Olivia creates her art in a local studio near Northamptonshire and has over 10 years’ experience running creative workshops alongside her own practice.  She has worked and exhibited in London and overseas.