This website is slowly being rebuilt and repopulated as I try to reduce my activity on social media and platforms owned by others.
Me
Hi, my name’s Ivan. Originally from Spain but I’ve spent a long time in England. ‘ve reached that stage in life when there is a shorter road ahead of me than behind me. I’ve been coaching and consulting professionally for much of the last decade, and I’m increasingly looking for ways to use these skills with the communities I am part of outside of work. It’s largely selfish – it means I can continue learning and call it ‘work’. But it’s also genuinely an attempt to share the things that move me – that make me laugh, or think, or simply worry less.
MQ Art Club for children
I prefer to call this ‘Creativity Club’, but as there aren’t many of these around, ‘Art Club’ is simpler to explain. Inspired by artist-teachers like Hervé Tullet and Paul Johnson, I focus on the process of making art and not the product (i.e. this is not about making things to get mum or dad to put on the fridge). We never use reference images, don’t set specific objectives, and rarely – if ever – do I give direct instruction.
What we do instead is make things up – and share them. A typical session begins with a game (charades or consequences are often the spark), and then we work on that session’s specific theme on a collaborative canvas to build individual and collaborative stories around a theme we illustrate. We use dice and other elements to introduce random elements – the aim is to give the children confidence in their creative resilience. A shared canvas also increases the need to collaborate and negotiate. Ideas – good and bad – spread around the table, and laughter (and occasional mischief) is definitely contagious.
Venue
Sessions currently take place in two venues – St Marys Junior site and Patch Twickenham. More details will be available closer to the Autumn 2025 term.
MQ Workshops for adults
I am slowly adding to the repertoire of workshops I offer – the main downside of paper arts is waiting for things to dry / timing things right.
Mindful art
Adults tend to be a lot more reluctant artists than children, which I think is a real shame. So I run what I call ‘Mindful’ versions of some of the sessions I run for children, where we focus more on ‘being present’ and less on story telling.
Bookbinding
Paste paper pamphlets – decorate and make your own simple notebook
This is run either as a 3 hour session, or in two 90 minute sessions. In the first half we make some decorative paste papers using a variety of techniques. In the second half we make a simple single section hardback pamphlet, and use one of our paste papers to decorate it. This workshop covers a number of fundamentals of bookbinding, while requiring very little prior experience – threading a needle is about as complicated as this one gets.
Venue
Sessions currently take place at Patch Twickenham. Email me on hello AT monkquixote DOT com to be added to the mailing list.
MonkQuixote stories, book arts and stationery
I explain a bit more in my bookbinding journey and supplement this with my artist Statement, but I’ll be looking to document more and more of my work on the blog, and occasionally post to https://www.instagram.com/monkquixote/