August saw the close of our brilliant series of zine-inspired creative sessions with artist Gemma Dunnell in the Online Art Group. Together, we’ve explored walking journals, landscape tunnels, keepsake zines and Victorian puzzle purses, before bringing the series to a close by creating our own handmade zine wallets – bringing together everything we’d created along the way.

These sessions have so perfectly captured everything the Online Art Group stands for and hopes to encourage: true, joyful, experimental and playful creativity, with process and wellbeing prioritised over perfectionism and outcome.

Since its post-Covid inception in 2022, we’ve explored such a wide range of artistic techniques and approaches in the Online Art Group, supporting one another to discover how making art can benefit our wellbeing. After four years of meeting with you every single month, we’ve made the decision to pause the creation of new workshop content after August, while we take some time to explore how the Online Art Group might develop in the future.

While we’re pressing pause on new content, this is certainly not the end. We’re delighted that the Online Art Group will remain open as a creative resource and community space. Our fantastic library of sessions from the past four years will continue to be available, so whether you’ve missed sessions along the way or would like to revisit old favourites, there’s plenty to get stuck into!

If you’ve been part of this wonderful community in any shape or form, we’d like to say a huge thank you for helping to build what has become a very special creative corner of the internet. It’s been wonderful to see what we’ve made together.

We’ll continue to welcome new members who’d like to access the library of sessions in the group. For all enquiries, please email onlineartgroup@somersetartworks.org.uk

Images: group member Ember Kelly and Gemma Dunnell
With thanks to funding support in 2026 from Arts Council England