The next time you visit the Pannett Art Gallery you can explore some of the paintings in a number of different ways thanks to a small grant from Museums Development Yorkshire (MDY).

As part of this project the curator talked to Whitby DAG and WHISH (Whitby Support and Help for children with Hidden Impairments) to develop a range of resources, including tactile handling objects, to encourage visitors to look more closely and gain a greater understanding of the paintings.

Families from WHISH visited the Pannett for two craft workshops, looking closely at the pictures and helping the gallery to choose which paintings to concentrate on. From these workshops four different resources were created.

You may have seen people wearing white gloves to pick up a museum exhibit or painting. This is because one of the greatest causes of damage to artwork is the dirt, soap, chemicals and grease from being touched, however clean your hands are. This is one of the reasons why museums don’t allow people to touch their objects or paintings. However, the texture of paint in some pictures really contributes to the mood or emotion of the subject. To help visitors understand what an oil painting feels like members of Whitby Art Society have created oil painted canvases and boards so you can now feel the texture of an oil painting.

For the same reason the beautiful Burne Jones Tapestries on display in the Weatherill Gallery at Pannett Art Gallery are behind glass. This is frustrating for anyone who loves textiles, so the gallery commissioned weaver Dr Jenny Cousens to create a sample of woven tapestry in the style of the Arts and Crafts movement. The sample allows visitors to handle an example of weaving showing the materials and the techniques that Victorian craft designers would have used.

Four simple jigsaw puzzles have been made to encourage younger visitors to look more closely at the paintings.
Many of the paintings in the Pannett Collection, including some beautiful Weatherill miniatures, contain intricate details that can easily be missed by the casual viewer. It is also difficult to appreciate the amazing brushstrokes in some paintings.

Vinyl Signs of Whitby have helped the gallery to create enlarged versions of sections of some paintings to assist visitors to see these details more easily. This also makes these paintings more accessible to visitors with a visual impairment.