Art Attack

1 9 9 0 – 2 0 0 7 (UK)

Neil Buchanan presented the UK children’s television art programme Art Attack.

Neil had obviously been doing children’s programmes for a long time as he had mastered the art of speaking on a kids’ level while making a picture out of food, string or rhinoceros poo.

Neil’s most common tip to the viewers was not to be too neat – which is probably good advice when it comes to making pictures from the dung of a large African mammal!

The other (more animated) star of Art Attack was ‘The Head’ who showed the gallery of the viewers’ pictures and passed sarcastic judgment on Neil’s creations (while often having a go himself). The Head seemed to be a Yorkshireman or some other form of Northerner . . .

The most spectacular part of the show was the large picture Neil created out of different materials, in various locations.

These works of art didn’t appear to form any familiar shape until the end when we saw the image from the air looking down and as if by magic an incredible work of art had been created.

Hang on! Didn’t Tony Hart used to do that on Vision On and Take Hart ?

Some examples of the “zany and fun” art activities featured on Art Attack were;

• ‘blood writing’ where a squeegee bottle was used to write out a word, for a Halloween poster for example, and then the poster board was tipped up to let the writing run a bit (Spooky!) and;

• using sticky tape to fasten a row of about three thick felt tip markers together and then making a tartan design by going both horizontally and vertically in turn. Wicked!

The CITV show was revived for Disney Junior in 2011 presented by Jassa Ahluwalia. Lloyd Warbey took over the following year.

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