Spent the day at Morden Hall Park with the School Arts Partnership groups from Cricket Green and Wimbledon Chase schools – each child had a canvas and painted from life outdoors – lots of fun and some really interesting results.
I’m back at Singlegate Primary School in Colliers Wood this term – this time the project is to enhance the library on a theme of birds. Step one: making these papier mache birds to hang in a flock – they have a button on the base to hold the wire in place…we’ll also be making bird books, a nest-like wall hanging and cushions. The children had some nice ideas to make clouds, rain and eggs too.
I went to visit Ross at JMG studio to look at the letterpress equipment. We are planning a letterpress collaboration based on the river poems made by the families I worked with earlier in the year at Morden Hall Park.
I spent the afternoon sketching at the Grant Museum of Zoology, part of University College London. It’s an amazing collection of zoological specimens and other oddities, such as the mid-18th century Blaschka glass specimens – beautifully detailed life size models of snails, slugs, jellyfish and squid. Other favourite items included a disembodied chimpanzee hand, a jar of moles (rather like a jar of sweets but more macabre, with little pink paws instead of wrappers), and a large model of an elephant’s heart.
I’ve just painted a coat of satin finish yacht varnish on all four of the panels for the mural made with the G&T art club at Singlegate Primary School in Colliers Wood – so now they are ready to be fixed to the front of the school. The last session of the workshops was yesterday, and we made sketchbooks from scrap paper and badges. Next term I’m back at the school to do a new bird-themed project there.
Are they talking about you?
Here’s a hand-coloured pencil version – just wondering which works best?
Today I finished off the two mosaic panels I have been making for the School Arts Partnership with Y8 and 9 students from Cricket Green School and Y4 children from Wimbledon Chase Primary. Each child made their own panel, based on drawings they had made at Morden Hall Park, so you can see elements of the water wheel, the white bridge, the mill itself etc. Three Cricket Green students had fun today doing the grouting and seeing the patterns emerge like a patchwork quilt in tiles.
