AN artist from the North-East has taken part in a live painting demonstration at a major event in the region.

Mick Brown, 49, from Stanley, County Durham, painted poppies on canvas at The Sage Gateshead today. (Sunday, November 8)

The remembrance theme tied in with memorial services taking place across the country and was part of BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking Festival.

Mr Brown held an interactive workshop where people were able to try their hand at the craft and contribute to paintings.

Mr Brown, who is part of the People’s Art Community Studio, said: “It has been fantastic, really successful.

“We are part of the community for people with life challenges and vulnerabilities and were there to demonstrate what we do.”

Now in its tenth year, the festival included high-profile figures from the arts, science, politics and literature who gathered to discuss a range of topics under the theme of Tearing Up the Rule Book.

Alan Davey, controller of BBC Radio 3, said: “It’s a delight to work once again with Sage Gateshead to connect our North-East audience, and beyond through our radio broadcasts, to such a wide range of cultural offerings all themed around the idea of ‘tearing up the rule book’.”

The festival opened on Friday with American poet Claudia Rankine’s lecture on racial injustice. Juliet Stevenson talked about breaking rules in theatre while actress Sheila Hancock and Educating Yorkshire’s head teacher Jonny Mitchell yesterday discussed whether men and women have different attitudes to rule breaking.

Actors Stephen Tompkinson and Patricia Hodge, members of Royal Northern Sinfonia, pianist John Reid and choir Voices of Hope are this evening performing poetry, prose and music by Lewis Carroll, Emmeline Pankhurst, Beethoven, Shostakovich and others.

Celebrated scientist and author Richard Dawkins is talking about his memoir, Brief Candle in the Dark.