Gala Painted Spaces

01/09/2026

One of the many fun projects we had over the summer!

We’ve been lucky enough to have the wonderful TD1 Youth Hub team spend their time transforming our rather plain fence into something bright, colourful and full of personality! 💛

With portraits painted in lots of different styles, they’ve created a really special piece of artwork that brings so much colour and happiness to the centre. 🐶🐱🌈

We honestly can’t thank you all enough for the time, creativity, hard work and enthusiasm you put into this project. It was lovely to see you giving up your time, working together and putting so much care into every single portrait. ❤️

Thank you, TD1 Youth Hub — you’re absolute stars! ⭐️🎨

07/08/2026

After 3 days of painting, learning, exploring, discovering, playing and creating our Gala Painted Spaces Paint Jam 2026 is concluded. It has been so heartwarming to see artists coming to join us and share their skills with the young people we work with and to see those young people discovering their identities as artists too.
Thank you to the Focus Centre for giving us the space over the weekend. Thanks to dullartist24 for the fabulous sheep workshop and all the young people who painted one too. Thank you to artists and facilitators .lannart , su_e_side , Julz, freds_face , Aether Elf and Loni Thompson Illustration.
Thank you to all those young people who showed up across the weekend, who weren't afraid to give it a go and kept us going with plenty of brilliant ideas and motivation.Thank you to ones who couldn't make the weekend but have been a massive part in building the idea along the way owen and Kaya Fairbrass .
My final thanks goes to who set the bar high in creating our first big mural of GPS, which now sits (or swims) in pride of place at the Focus Centre.
We are so grateful for the unpaid time and resources that so many of these people have put into this project, because we believe in the power of art and creativity in our communities. We also see that this is the first event here of it’s kind and as we establish the richness of creativity we have here, we can move forward towards more funding and greater opportunities for artists and the young people we’re working with.

05/08/2026

After 3 days of painting, learning, exploring, discovering, playing and creating our Gala Painted Spaces Paint Jam 2026 is concluded. It has been so heartwarming to see artists coming to join us and share their skills with the young people we work with and to see those young people discovering their identities as artists.

Venue by Venue

Ar little_art_hub_galashiels, thank you to artists LaToy and Philippa Tomlin: Hysterious who worked with our Chromonauts to create big piece collaborative works that you'll be seeing again soon (as always, including our Mascot, Fred Worst).
Thank you to Pippa Sinclair , Julie MapPippa Sinclair whJulie Mapes the space on Saturday to the local community artists to create some big artwork. To the artists Grace Smith , Nat Peter MuGrace Smithie Nates who have creatJulie Mapesely big artworks. Some of these artists really pushed themselves to work bigger than they've ever done before which was a massive achievement, so I think they'll be another post to showcase the finished artwork too. Thank you to all the facilitators too at LAH who have pretty much given us access to the space over these past few weeks too (and guess where the boards are currently being stored).

We are so grateful for the unpaid time and resources that so many of these people have put into this project, because we believe in the power of art and creativity in our communities and for the future of our young people. Also because we know making art is fun and it fills our hearts.

04/08/2026

After 3 days of painting, learning, exploring, discovering, playing and creating our Gala Painted Spaces Paint Jam 2026 is concluded. It has been so heartwarming to see artists coming to join us and share their skills with the young people we work with and to see those young people discovering their identities as artists too. 

Venue by Venue
The Ladhope Car Park 

The thanks go out to Douglas at for putting through the funding and believing in the project, which will continue beyond this weekend. Thank you to creative Communities Scotland,  whose funding made all of this possible. Thank you to those staff who gave up their weekends to fix boards, work with our young people and continue to provide food and shelter through the rain. Thanks to the local council who gave permission for us to make it happen in the car park and to Jewsons who kindly donated the use of the Heras fence panels.

Thank you to our weekend workshop leader
who took time to share skills and create some cool pieces with all the young people who showed up. Thank you to artists B4tz, La_toy and Kirsty McNicoll who travelled from Glasgow and Edinburgh to take part and create their pieces. 

Thank you to all those young people who showed up across the weekend, who weren't afraid to give it a go and kept us going with plenty of brilliant ideas and motivation.

01/08/2026

**Slight Change of Plan**
We will be concluding the Paint Jam tomorrow at the Focus Centre rather than the Ladhope Vale Car Park. This change has been just to fit in with the artists timescales. Pop by, say hello and add a bit to our community collaborative board.
We'll be there from around 11am-4pm.
Appreciation post from Saturday coming soon. You've all been amazin, Thank you so much

25/07/2026

The first of our Coz H & TD1 Chromonauts workshops with kicking off at little_art_hub_galashiels with amazing artist LaToy . The young people learnt so much about the history of graffiti, the importance of having a voice and all the techniques that go alongside. We're excited to see this piece go on display at the exhibition in August. Massive thanks to everyone involved.

25/07/2026

Our Quick Form to Book on to one of our workshops. Open to Young People aged 11-25: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSciHENDZ1ntf3uDrQ9wpptPRWtOb_Jycv3AV91nLqChPFmBlg/viewform?usp=header

19/04/2026

Our 'almost finished' pictures! We reached our final day on Friday of the project but of course artists being artists, have requested to go back to finish off more pieces that we started at the last minute 😅.
So there will be more posts to come when it's definitely finished! Thank you to the for having us and letting creativity run wild and above all, massive respect to our leading young artists ._by._owen .lannart and ._.potatoes._.and._.salt . Honourable mentions to everyone else who joined and held a paintbrush at any point too!