AN OSWESTRY charity has made the most of this year’s Big Draw event to spread important messages about well-being and the environment.

Qube, based in Oswald Road, has hosted several Big Draw sessions as part of the popular annual worldwide drawing festival.

With the theme of the event this year being health and well-being, the charity arranged have-a-go sessions to work alongside environmental artist, Tim Pugh.

Over three sessions taking place in Weston Rhyn, St Martins and Gobowen, groups worked with Tim to draw a giant turtle, made up of drawings of plastic items found on beaches in the UK.

The drawing festival has been running yearly since 2,000, with this year being the first time Qube has taken part.

Elaine Reynolds, of Qube, has helped to organise the events, and hopes they are able to spread positive messages through the project.

She said: “This year, the theme is health and well-being. It’s focusing on how drawing can make people feel better.

“We’ve had several talks and events about it, and Timm, who is an environmental artist, is working with us on this project.

“With this project, we’re working with him to raise awareness about the environment.

“So we’re trying to get a couple of messages across – one being how drawing can be good for health and your mind, and the other being about how it can start a conversation about some issues in the world.

“We’re hoping these workshops are able to make people consider whether they want to be buying as much plastic stuff, especially with Christmas coming up.

“We want to encourage people to think about buying things which will last longer, and to try avoiding single-use plastic.

“Also, on the topic of recycling, it might be an idea to encourage people to swap toys when they’ve used them, as opposed to just throwing them away.”

Tim, who is based in North Wales and Cumbria, said he hopes the drawing is able to make people think more about the environment.

“We’re making a big turtle out of drawings of toys which I have found on the beach washed up,” he said.

“I feel as though it’s an image people will relate to because it highlights pollution and plastic waste which is a big issue at the moment.

“So everyone is drawing small jigsaw-like pieces to fill the shape of the turtle.

“It’s a massively important message to get across; a lot of countries still don’t recycle properly.

“When I go to the beach, I see all these toys and plastic items floating about in the water or washed up on the sand, and there’s tonnes of it.

“Until you actually see it for yourself, it’s hard to realise.

“It’s quite poignant because a lot of them have been forgotten at the beach by children, it’s quite sad.”