THE residents at Wiltshire Heights care home got creative as they displayed their artistic sides in a national competition organised by the National Activity Providers Association and were presented with a highly commended award.

They have been working hard since the beginning of the year on their five chosen categories which were life history portraits, ceramics inspired by nature, classic art in the style of Monet and an intergenerational tree working with children who have links with the home.

Libby Miles, Client Services Manager said: "It was important that everyone had an opportunity to enjoy all of the art work created.

"The highlight of the show was an album put together showing all the residents at work creating their wonderful pieces of art and this gave rise to talking about the amount of enjoyment they had experienced being part of this award.

"To quote one of the residents to be recognised now as highly commended has been the “icing on the cake”.

The residents worked on various formats for the life history portraits including photography in colour and black and white.

They also decided to investigate work in silhouettes and had fun working on each other’s pictures.

For the category of ceramics inspired by nature, the frugal side of the residents used old ceramic tiles destined for waste as a base for the glass paints.

They also used googly eyes on pictures of rocks taken on Charmouth beach.

Some residents also tried sculpturing and created dragons from clay with one resident having the idea of using cotton wool to look like smoke coming from the dragon’s nostrils.

The classic category was a rare chance to create their own interpretation of a Monet classic The Japanese Bridge (The Water-Lily Pond).

The team helped the residents by breaking down the piece into sections to show how you can build up the composition slowly and then helped the residents put their own interpretation into the piece.

We were lucky to be joined by local artist, Creative MOJO who helped our residents create collages.

An exhibition of the work was held at the home to display the finished pieces for visitors, staff and residents to enjoy for several weeks, including for the summer fete.