10/06/2014 The inspirational sun

Straight into the confession: I took no photos at the group. I hang my head in shame. Unfortunately (luckily?) some people managed to leave their art behind giving me the opportunity to take photos at home, there's a silver lining in every cloud.

We created sunset (or sunrise, if you prefer) pictures. I love these, children get to be as colourful and splodgy as they wish and over this you lay a cut out image of a skyline. Alternately you could leave it to dry and then paint the silhouette with black paint (as in the top image) which produces a slightly better effect but requires a much longer drying time than we have available to us in our sessions.

Completed painting, trimmed. 

The inspiration for this came from a project that I did in Primary school when we did some work on the poem 'The Highwayman' by Alfred Noyes. In this case our silhouettes included a horse and rider on the horizon. I love this poem and it creates a very evocative image in my mind making it a great spark for creative ideas.

Thanks to a donation of craft materials we also had some plastic suncatchers to decorate. For these we used glass pens and created some fantastic images that are great at catching the sun as it shines through the window. An alternative way to decorate these (that didn't occur to me until the end of the session, doh!) would be to use pva glue, tissue paper and gems. I suspect that this would have been more enjoyable for the younger ones too, you can't beat a bit of mess and glue for fun.

We also had some interesting discussions about how we use our space within the hall and could perhaps allow the older children to use it as a studio space. The hall is large and well lit with plenty of tables available, something few homes can offer. The three hours is a nice chunk of time for creating 'big' art, it will be fascinating to see if anybody takes this idea up. I'm very tempted myself!

And next time...
17th June 2014: It's a helter-skelter session. If you're running late you'll probably find us at the park. I'm also planning on bringing diet cola and mentos for a bit of science and stickiness so fingers crossed that the weather stays nice!

And a here's a theory as to why we get such a spectacular reaction from mythbusters.