A GROUP of trees on the Sculpture Trail at Beechenhurst have been given a new ‘bark’ as part of an art project.

Around 150 artists from around the Forest have used ‘street’ style art to create works with a message and they have been attached to trees at Beechenhurst as part of the BARK project.

The project started at the Gloucester and Forest Alternative School Provision (GFAPS) at Joys Green – an education facility for young people who are unable to attend mainstream school for a variety of reasons.

Susan Woodward, a teacher at the Joys Green facility, said: “During the summer of 2015, a small group of students at GFAPS worked with Felix Braun, a veteran street artist from Bristol and founder of Paintsmiths.

“This core group developed a project called BARK to enable GFAPS students to return to the wider community as art coaches and mentor young people in a range of educational settings , encouraging self-expression through the medium of street art.

“What is bark? Bark is around a tree and bark is to make a loud noise.”

The core team worked with young people from Artspace in Cinderford, the Dean Academy in Lydney, 1st Royal Forest Scouts at Parkend, Newent Community School and Wyedean School in Sedbury.

The project was funded by the Arts Council for England and the Summerfield charitable trust and the Forestry Commission and Sculpture Trail Trust arranged the venue for the exhibition.

In 2016, students at GFAPS were directly involved in engaging the local community and by the end of the year the core team had met with Tom Sledmore and Jack Dones of Paintsmiths who shared skills and ideas.

Ms Woodward added: “Tom worked with our guys to build their confidence, self-esteem and skill base to allow them to do this.”

“Our original core group had at the heart of their vision that the works should be seen in the trees to celebrate being a Forest child.

“During 2017 the BARK team visited each of our community groups and delivered three full-day workshops

“GFAPS students were able to encourage all young people to shout out loud in a visual way about the things that mattered most to them as we all benefitted from the constant professional guidance given by our artists.

“Thank you to our young Forest people for having such commitment, such passion and the skill and desire because without them, this would not have happened.

“The back story to every single board is immense and the journey the young people have been on was huge.”

The themes of the large-scale board capture both the serious and light-hearted sides of life and included bullying, animal cruelty, equality, mythical animals and cake.

Adrian Woodward, a graphics teacher at Newent Community School, said the students had enjoyed the project and it had had real benefit in the classroom.

He said: “I got involved in the BARK project early on because it was an exciting opportunity for some student-led artwork and a chance for students to work large-scale which they don’t do usually.

“The reaction from the students has been really good – the students we focused on getting involved were the ones we thought would really benefit from the skill side as well as working large-scale and they revelled in it.

“They enjoyed the early workshops where they developed stencil cutting and spraying skills and the later ones where they worked to complete the boards.

“The exciting thing for me is that those same students are now using the skills to help with their GCSEs and they are bringing it into the classroom to create really good quality work.

“With some students it has really lifted their chances of a good GCSE.”

Hope Adams, who was part of the team that created one of the boards for 1st Royal Forest Scouts, said they enjoyed learning new skills and creating their piece, Teamwork, with its call that “together is stronger”.

She said: “We had lots of sheets with ideas which we then mind mapped and worked on from there.”

But it was not only young people who found themselves drawn into the creative process – scout leaders Fiona Morrissey and Angela Healy also produced a board Join the Adventure.

Ms Healy said: “We didn’t expect to get involved but we were going home as messy as the rest of them.

“We want to spread the word about the wonderful opportunities available to young people and adults at Forest of Dean Scouts by depicting the Scout emblem in a forest with falling Scout emblem-shaped leaves.

“It’s a lot more technical than you might think. There was stencilling and free-hand and we had to learn whether to hold the can near or further away for different effects.

We also had to find fonts and there was graphite transfer to upscale images and blend it all in.”

The exhibition runs at the Sculpture Trail, Beechenhurst until Thursday, November 30.

•See this week’s Review for more information.