Set up in 2005 by artist Ellie Chilton and graphic designer Kate Thorpe, both mums of two. Petit Picasso began with the aim of keeping children excited about art in response to what they noticed as a reduction of timetabled art and crafts in schools. Combined with increasing pressures on children to achieve targets and results, they felt a real need for children to have more ‘down-time’ to develop their own ideas and creative thoughts in a relaxed environment.

Their hope is to provide all children with the confidence and freedom to discover their unique gifts and talents, and have a great time doing it.

“I encourage children to experiment and not compare what they are doing to what another child is doing. If they come to a big painting workshop and decide they want to make a 3D robot, that’s fine. I want there to be as few rules as possible. I help but I don’t do it for them. If they make a mistake, they change it into something different!!!!! I want the children to enjoy that freedom.”
Ellie Chilton

Plato†
The patterns of the arts are the key to all learning.†

Wassily Kandinsky
There is no must in art because art is free.

W. B. Yeats
Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

Plato
Do not train children to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.

Edward Hopper
No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination.