AN ART and design student from Clackmannan has taken inspiration for her coursework from a popular coronavirus lockdown activity used to lift people's spirits.

Ellie Rodenburg-Abro, a first-year HND Art and Design student at Forth Valley College, was fascinated by the Believe in Rainbows social media community, who are helping to inspire some positivity across the UK.

They are urging people in isolation to draw, colour, paint or use any materials to create rainbows and place them in their windows.

The 18-year-old was working on the community project section of her course and was hoping to deliver some workshops locally when the nation was placed under lockdown to help reduce the spread of Covid-19.

While her plans fell apart, there was an opportunity to progress her work through the Believe in Raibows project.

She organised for her family – including mum Marjon, 16-year-old sister Hana and 11-year-old brother Danny – to take part in a workshop in their own living room and create some rainbows.

The final pieces were than stuck up on windows around the house in a bid to bring some cheer to passers-by who may be taking their daily exercise walk.

Ellie also placed her project on the Microsoft Sway online platform and sent evidence to her lecturers.

She said: "I really liked the Believe in Rainbows Facebook page and I thought I could adapt that to link it to my course and also show some positivity and joy throughout this uncertain time.

"I organised for my family to be creative through an hour-long workshop and we all definitely enjoyed doing it as it took our minds of work and the situation.

"My hope would be to encourage people to have some fun like this, especially when times are difficult."

According to creative industries curriculum manager Linda Paterson, Ellie's work is "a great example of creative problem solving".

She added: "Instead of dwelling on the fact that she could no longer carry out her planned project, Ellie saw this as an opportunity to give her family something positive to focus on and get her project completed at the same time.

"Her presentation of the project using Microsoft Sway meant that all she had to do was send the link to her lecturer to allow her work to be assessed.

"Ellie completed all of this within a week of the college closing."