Recently, North Hertfordshire College in Hitchin opened its doors to the local community for the Big Draw Festival.

In its second year, the festival is designed to bring the local community together to celebrate the transformative power of art in supporting wellbeing, and creative thought. 

North Hertfordshire College's Big Draw Festival delivered an immersive experience, offering a range of creative activities aligning with this year's national theme of 'Drawing in Motion'.

All activities were led by volunteer students from North Hertfordshire College's Creative Arts, Travel & Tourism, and Hospitality & Catering departments. The event was supported with funding from North Hertfordshire Council Community Grant and Councillors Locality Budget.

This year, the festival welcomed a local artist to share her inspiration with the community. Sarah Graham, creator of the 'Samarivan' campaign brought her templates for attendees to create their own designs.

The event also hosted story telling activities with the Library Service, as well as drawing natural specimens from the local Museum Service's collection.

Areas of the campus were decorated to represent each continent and attendees were given 'Creative Passports' upon arrival. Travel and Tourism students took groups to visit each 'continent' to receive a stamp. This experience helped learners develop their customer service skills and counted towards their work experience.

In the Travel and Tourism department's mock plane seating area, students were leading paper aeroplane origami sessions, and giving demonstrations on how to use life jackets.

In the sports hall, attendees put their paper aeroplanes to the test in a flight competition and learnt a line dance inspired by the Redcoats.  

The College's Hospitality & Catering department had a variety of toppings available for guests to decorate their own pizzas, cooked fresh by students and ready to eat on-site.

Foundation Art & Design students helped guests create a collaborative art piece inspired by old maps, with each artist adding their own contribution using collage and paint.  

North Hertfordshire College's virtual reality headsets were also in use to immerse visitors in the surroundings of the Sydney Opera House using google maps. 

The students also led activities such as flag making, mask making, chalk-drawing, face-painting, and took guests behind the scenes of their brand-new film, TV and VFX studio.

Over 300 visitors joined the event, creating over 160 pizzas, 100 masks, 100 flags and the large collaborative art piece is now displayed at their Hitchin Campus.

Feedback from attendees was positive with one parent commenting: 

"There was a really lovely atmosphere; staff and students were really enthusiastic and supportive. The face painters were amazing! I absolutely loved the world map activity - in a time when our world is full of conflict and distress, this activity was so well pitched."

Raffi, a guest aged 10 said:

"There was so much to do, I loved the paper aeroplane competition, and I made my own pizza! My passport is full of stamps, and I loved having a go at all the different activities. I really want to come back next year, it was the best! "

Melissa Caneppele, schools and community engagement executive at North Hertfordshire College, added:

"The Big Draw Festival was a huge success, it was brilliant to see the local community come together to explore their creativity. Big Draw events are held across the country, and it was a great opportunity to open our doors to showcase some of the curriculum areas we offer post-16. 

"Seeing the smiles on people's faces, from parents and grandparents to children of all ages has really helped to show the positive influence art can have on our wellbeing.  It's been great to see all areas of the college come together to run this fantastic event and we can't wait to start planning our next community event!"