If the residents of Harbour House residential care home in West Bay need more inspiration to get creative they’ve got just what they need outside their windows in the harbour.

But they’ve also had help from Bridport Creative Minds’ artist Sarah Jane Ross and a group of youngsters.

Leading the artistic endeavour was Creative Minds’ artist Sarah Jane Ross, from Bridport, who delivered a family-orientated art session for both residents and children.

The theme of the art session was ‘Seaside’ and included reminiscence and working on a one-to-one basis, to create a giant seaside landscape painting.

Sarah Jane Ross said: “One of our key aims is to make art accessible to everyone, so this collaborative session was an exciting way to achieve this.

“The members of staff’s children and residents used oil pastels and watercolours to paint an ‘endless landscape’, joining all of their wonderful work together at the end of the session.”

Sarah Jane has been a Creative Minds’ artist for 18 months and says it’s a wonderfully therapeutic way to make art accessible for everybody.

She added: “We are a national organisation with over 30 artists across the UK, we share ideas about sessions, it’s a community really.

“I deliver sessions in the west Dorset area in Bridport, Lyme Regis, Dorchester, Weymouth and surrounding villages

“There are lots and lot of benefits. Creative Minds is a social enterprise and the art sessions are therapeutic.They boost self esteem and sometimes we can engage in reminiscence work with the residents.

“Something like the seaside theme engages them thinking about their holidays in the past and I am a Dementia Friend.”

“It is always good fun and not too serious and creates a nice relaxed social environment that gets them talking to each other.”

“Research does show that it really does help various conditions particularly in older age.

“It was great fun there was a sense of friendships developing and everyone got a lot out of the session, which was great.”

Harbour House register manager Anna Filsell said: “We thought it would be great fun for both our residents and the children to work together in an art session as the residents really enjoy the art sessions with Sarah Jane. It was a fantastic morning and we plan to hold more intergenerational sessions in the future.”

Harbour House hosts a regular art session with Creative Minds as part of its varied activity programme.