“Dave has worked with our children on a number of projects linked to nature and the environment. The work produced is stunning; they are beautiful features of our school. Dave is warm and responsive; he has a good understanding of the needs and abilities of children. Our children very much enjoyed working with a professional artist and gained so much from the experience”
J. Hathaway, Headteacher - Gilmour Infants
The artwork is based on the theme "To the Sea, To the Sea" - the children used archive maps as the inspiration for their wax pencil and ink drawings on fabric. The sail combines these individual drawings which explore the different shorelines along the River Dee. Details can be found of the Chester Contemporary website
Commissioned to create an online educational resource for Celebrating Halton's Heritage, a Heritage Lottery funded project by Heritage HQ and Halton Borough Council. A series of in-person and online CPD sessions accompanied the resources.
Workshop participants create a play-doh shape to represent their selected sound. Using music technology, the play-doh is transformed into a custom musical instrument, with participants' own sounds being played when striking the shapes.
Two teams compete to get the musical Odd Ball across the opposition's goal-line using pencils on sticks. The resulting drawing is full of purposeful marks illustrating the attacking and defensive movements of competition.
(Get 5% discount in the Odd Ball shop with code: DBIXODD)
Staff training in how to make effective use of sketchbooks in Art and Design. Also looks at the use of sketchbooks in other subjects. Provides activities that build resilience and develop drawing skills. Available for inset day or as after school training.
Available for inset day or as after school training. The sessions look at how to use different drawing materials and introduce staff to a range of drawing techniques. Incorporates a series of activities that can be used with students and includes teaching resources to support delivery back in the classroom.
Liverpool St Helens Heritage Project comissioned an online educational resource pack in order to increase engagement with schools. The activities in the pack were designed to focus on specific National Curriculum targets and provide cross-curricular links with the project exhibition and archive. Two versions of the resource pack were created: A printed copy that was distributed to all primary schools in St. Helens - click here to view the printed version (4.8MB) - and a web-based resource pack with all activities available as printer-friendly PDFs. click here to view the web-based resource pack.
Sessions explored expressive drawing techniques and incorporated innovative and adaptable uses for new technology in the classroom. Emphasis on developing students' resilience and the positive impact of drawing and creativity on wellbeing.
"I’m looking forward to using these ideas with my students - particularly the large collaborative work"
"Brilliant, very informative and changed my outlook on art"
The timeline artwork incorporates images from St Helens archive, in addition to photography and original illustrations. To accompany the artwork, a school activity pack and teacher's resource pack were produced. These were provided to school groups visiting Saints Rugby Club at Langtree Park, St Helens.
This series of workshops used the concept of windows to explore different views and perspectives of St Helens, while focusing on the use of drawing as a tool for creative exploration and enhancing students' resilience.
The project, funded by CulturEd - St Helens' Local Cultural Education Partnership, was delivered in 11 schools in St. Helens, incorporating Family workshops and CPD sessions for staff.
Workshops delivered over a number of weeks exploring themes of perspective, the built environment and sense of place. Amoung the artwork produced during these sessions were mutli-layered collaborative drawings which also introduced participants to concepts and processes of abstraction.
Working with Gilmour Infants over a number of years, a series of artworks was produced from large-scale wall murals - using collage and drawing onto projections - to colourful, Miro-inspired framed works hung around the school and headteacher's office.
Digitally printed mural developed from a series of workshops focusing on cultural identity and exploring pupils' sense of self. In another workshop, pupils produced an artwork using coloured cotton and ceramic tiles.
Activity showcasing the content of the Educational Resource pack produced for the Liverpool St Helens Heritage Project.
Your Name Here was a project that asked the people of St Helens to nominate someone to be commemorated permanently by having a park in St Helens named after them. As part of this project, David Bixter was commissioned to produce a series of case studies to demonstrate the potential scope of the application process. The case studies produced included visual, typographical and sound-based artworks.
In developing Liverpool's Capital of Culture Education programme, David Bixter delivered consultation sessions with the Council's Youth Advisory Group. From these sessions, he devised a programme of creative workshops and activities which was delivered by numerous artists to schools across the city. David Bixter also developed the project branding from artworks created by children during the consultation sessions.
