PROFESSIONAL artists are to help bring out the creative side of youngsters at a series of workshops.

More than 150 primary schoolchildren will learn from members of the Bearpark Artists Cooperative, near Durham.

Designed for children aged seven to 11, the workshops have been organised to coincide with an exhibition at the DLI Museum, in Durham City, featuring artwork by pupils at schools across the county.

Painter Barrie Ormsby, artist-in-residence with the National Blood Service, will lead children in drawing and painting inspired by the schools' exhibition, Our Time, Our Place, Our Lives.

Colleague Brian Addison will help the children work on a stained glass theme using drawing, paint and coloured tissue paper, while painter John Foker will use various printmaking techniques, using potatoes and textured surfaces.

Romey Chafer, whose latest work is inspired by maps and x-rays, will explore the colourful and creative uses of paper, collage and paper pulp.

The workshops start at the DLI Museum, at Aykley Heads, on Monday, when nine and ten-year-olds from Howden-le-Wear Primary School spend the afternoon with Barrie Ormsby.

Other schools involved in the workshops, which run until February 1, are Lumley Medway Infant, St Thomas More RC Primary, at Belmont; Nettlesworth Primary and Thornley Primary Schools.