A corporate art workshop brings individual ideas, colours and contributions together to create a single artwork.
“To describe the session as a career highlight wouldn’t go far enough! … I saw some of our more introverted staff really getting into the activity and body percussion which I really hadn’t expected. … Those pieces of art are going to look amazing in the new space.”
Ellen, Faculty Executive Director, UNSW Law & Justice
There is something satisfying about watching individual contributions take shape as each person finds their place in the creative process and the group gradually creates a piece of art together.
Our corporate art workshops come to your office, conference venue or event location anywhere in Sydney, and can accommodate groups of 10 to 150 people. Sessions run for one to three hours and are guided by two facilitators: an exhibiting artist who leads the creative process, and a second who helps everyone find their confidence and contribute, including those who arrive convinced they cannot draw or paint.
At the end, there is something real to show for the experience: a finished artwork, created by your people and ready to hang on the wall.
At a glance
What a corporate art workshop involves
A group works across a series of canvases prepared beforehand around a theme and colour palette agreed with you in advance. Most often, several people share each canvas, with around seven or eight people contributing to a single piece. For some events, everyone has their own board, with the individual pieces designed to come together as one collective artwork.
No artistic experience is needed. Everyone brings something different to the canvas: some people are instinctive and expressive, others more considered; some take the lead while others quietly shape the details. The finished work reflects all of those contributions.
There is a natural element of collaboration throughout the workshop. People have to make decisions together, build on someone else’s ideas and sometimes hand over a section they have been working on and see where the next person takes it. The process is creative and relaxed, but the collaboration is genuine, and the result is something the whole group has had a hand in creating.
When everyone has their own board
For larger groups, we can give each person a board of their own. A faint outline runs across the complete set, showing how the individual pieces will eventually connect. Sixty separate boards can become a single artwork when they are brought together.
We created this format for a nutrition company, with 60 boards arranged across three sections. Each section had its own colour palette and contributed to a different part of the organisation’s story. The words were deliberately broken across the boards, so that an individual board might carry only a letter or two and make little sense on its own. Within that framework, everyone was free to bring their own ideas and design to their piece.
That individual freedom is part of the appeal. People can sit alongside their colleagues, enjoy the atmosphere and take the artwork in whatever creative direction feels natural to them. Then the boards come together, and the relationship between the individual pieces becomes clear: everyone’s contribution has its own character, yet it forms part of something much larger.
How the session runs
We talk first. Before the day, we talk through what the event is for and how the artwork can connect with it: your theme, your brand and what you would like the finished piece to express.
We start with a warm-up. Sessions usually begin with something to get people talking and working together before anyone picks up a brush. Often that is body percussion and vocal percussion: keeping a rhythm going while introducing yourself to the person beside you, then building the exercise from there. It takes just a few minutes, gets people laughing and helps everyone settle into the creative experience, including those who may arrive convinced they cannot paint.
We prepare the canvases. The canvases are sized to suit your space and prepared in advance, so the group arrives to an artwork that already has some of its structure in place. There is a reason we do this, which we explain below.
Your team makes the artwork. Most sessions have the whole group working at once, across as many canvases as the numbers require. For larger groups, or when the workshop forms part of a wider programme, we can divide the group and rotate people through in blocks while other activities take place alongside. However the session is organised, every contribution becomes part of the finished work.
It is ready to hang. The planning and preparation that happens before the workshop means the final piece has a considered visual direction and a sense of cohesion. It is artwork created by the group, designed to live on the wall long after the event.
Why we prepare the canvases first
We arrive with the ground already laid down, and the group paints into it. There are three reasons we work this way.
It gets people started.
A group arrives to something that already partially exists: colour, tone and depth. Every image and detail in the finished work is still created by the people painting it. Starting from nothing is often the hardest part, so having the foundations in place helps people get straight into the creative process. One participant told us she would happily paint all the time, but if she had to start at home, it would take her six months to get going.
It keeps the room clean.
Large areas of background colour are where much of the mess comes from. Painting smaller elements into an established scene is far more controlled. It is one of the reasons venues that might otherwise be nervous about hosting a painting session are comfortable with ours.
It is the point of the exercise.
Foundations are established before anyone adds the finishing touches. That is true of the canvas, and it is true of a team that has been together for years. The groundwork is already there. The workshop is about building on it, adding something of your own and deciding where it goes next.
Fifty people, two groups, Coogee Bay Surf Club
UNSW Law & Justice was moving offices. Renovations were underway, people were scattered in the meantime, and they wanted something that would bring the group back together – along with artwork of a standard they could hang in the new space.
We built the session around the venue. The surf club looks straight out over the beach, so the three canvases, each a metre by about 1.3, were prepared in advance with a beach scene layered in and set up one to a table.
Fifty people came through in two groups of twenty five, around forty minutes each, seven or eight to a canvas. While one group painted, the other was in a different activity, then they swapped – which gave everyone time to think about what they wanted to put down.
We asked people to paint themselves into the scene, as they are now and as they see themselves in the future. What came back was dogs, umbrellas, mermaids, a game of volleyball, a cat asleep on the sand that would never go near a beach in real life. One woman painted herself playing volleyball, something she said she would never have the courage to do on an actual beach.
Three gallery-quality artworks went into the new office.
Ellen wrote to us afterwards:
“Seeing the group in flight with yourself and Taryn really blew me away. … It’s a credit to how comfortable you were able to make the group feel, and the space you gave them to create connection throughout. … Thank you so much for bringing out their potential – it couldn’t have been better!”
Ellen, Faculty Executive Director, UNSW Law & Justice
Will the artwork actually look good?
This is the question most people are really asking, so it is worth answering directly.
Yes. That is what the preparation is for. The canvases, palette and composition are worked out in advance by the artist facilitators, giving the group a clear visual foundation to work within. The result is not simply a group of people painting together, but a considered piece of artwork created by the group.
It is common for people who were not in the room to assume the finished piece was created by a professional rather than by their colleagues during a team-building session.
The test we set ourselves is simple: would the organisation actually want this on a wall? The aim is for the answer to be yes, not for the artwork to end up in a cupboard once the day is over.
Formats
Inside a conference or development day
The art session runs as one element in a larger programme, with groups rotating through in blocks so the whole group does not need to be in it at once.
A team day
The full session, one to three hours, with the group together for the whole thing.
A leadership session
A smaller group using the artwork to work through the organisation’s direction, where images do something that a written statement cannot.
Shared canvases or individual boards
Both work and they suit different days. A shared canvas suits a group that fits around a few of them, and the negotiating over the composition is part of what people take away. Individual boards suit a larger group, and they hold together when they are part of one design that only resolves once the boards are assembled. What we would steer you away from is individual boards with no design tying them together, which tends to leave people comparing their work with the person beside them.
Larger groups
Numbers are a question of canvases and facilitators rather than a ceiling. Fifty people can work at once across enough canvases with an extra facilitator or two, or come through in rounds while other parts of the programme run – the recent session at Coogee ran two rounds of twenty five. We will suggest a shape once we know your numbers, your room and what else is happening that day.
Aboriginal art
We also run art sessions led by Aboriginal artists, where groups work with traditional symbols and motifs, or paint their own boomerangs and message stones. That is a different session with Aboriginal artists leading it, more information is on our Aboriginal team building page.
Where we run art workshops in Sydney
At your venue. We deliver at offices, conference venues, hotels, surf clubs and event spaces across Sydney and the surrounding regions. Sessions are run indoors.
Beyond Sydney, we travel across Australia and the Pacific.
Practical planning
We come to you. The session is built to run in your space rather than ours.
What we bring. Canvases, paints, brushes, smocks, ground sheets and the facilitators. Everything needed to run the session and protect the room.
What the room needs. Tables and chairs. The tables want enough surface for a canvas with people working around it – trestles are ideal and long rectangular tables work well, though we will make most things work. We cover them either way. Canvas sizes are agreed with you beforehand to suit the space and the number of people.
Protecting the venue. Plastic goes down over tables and flooring, and everyone wears a smock. Combined with the prepared backgrounds, that is why venues who have had a bad experience with painting sessions before are happy to have us back.
Setup. We are usually on site about an hour beforehand. If your run sheet does not allow for that, tell us and we will work with the time there is.
Travel. Included within Sydney. Outside Sydney there may be an additional facilitator travel fee.
Lead time. Three weeks is ideal. That gives us time to collate the materials and do the preparation the canvases need. It varies a good deal in practice, and shorter notice is often workable, so it is worth asking.
What your team takes away
- A finished artwork the organisation keeps and displays
- A shared piece of work that everyone had a hand in
- A session that gets people who do not normally work together doing something side by side
- For the leadership format, an image of the organisation’s direction that came out of the group rather than from a slide
Frequently asked questions
A team building session where a group creates a collaborative artwork together, led by professional artist facilitators. It runs at your office, conference venue or event space, takes one to three hours, and the finished piece stays with the organisation.
Yes. That is how every session runs. We deliver at workplaces, conference venues, hotels and event spaces across Sydney.
From 10 to 150. The format and the number of facilitators change with the group size.
One to three hours, depending on the format and the artwork.
There are a couple of ways and we will talk through which suits your day. The whole group can work at once, across enough canvases and with an extra facilitator or two. Or people can come through in rounds – at a recent session for fifty we ran two rounds of twenty five across three large canvases, around forty minutes each, with the other half in a different activity meanwhile. Rounds suit a day that has other things running alongside; everyone at once suits a day built around the artwork.
Yes, and that is really the point. Some people start straight away; others prefer to watch for a while before joining, which is fine. A few arrive convinced they will wreck the canvas. The warm-up and the prepared backgrounds are there to get past that, and the facilitators guide rather than paint it for you – which is how people end up with something they know is theirs.
Canvas size is worked out with you in advance, based on the wall space you have. Tell us where it is going when we are planning the session and we will size it accordingly.
Tables and chairs, and a room that fits your group. Trestles or long rectangular tables suit it best, but we can work with what a venue has. We cover the tables ourselves. Everything else we bring.
No. Plastic protects the tables and flooring, participants wear smocks, and because the backgrounds are prepared in advance people are painting small elements rather than laying down large areas of colour, which is where mess normally comes from.
About an hour on site beforehand. If that is not possible on your day, we will work with the time available.
Yes, and it often does. Groups rotate through the art session in blocks alongside the other activities, so the whole group does not need to be in the room at once.
Most clients have somewhere in mind before the day, which is part of why the canvas is sized to the space. If that changes, it is the sort of piece that can be raffled for a charity at the end of the year.
Three weeks is ideal, which covers collating the materials and preparing the canvases. It does vary, and we can often work with less, so it is worth asking even at short notice.
Yes, throughout Australia and the Pacific. Outside Sydney there may be an additional facilitator travel fee.
Yes. The theme and colour palette are agreed with you before the day, and can be built around your brand, your event theme, your venue or whatever the session is meant to be about. A recent session at a beachside venue was built around a beach scene for exactly that reason.
Other creative team building activities
Rhythm-led team building, with everyone playing from the first few minutes.
Group singing, from a room that has never sung together to a performance.
Song, dance, didgeridoo, storytelling and art, led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.