G Arcimbolodo saw both the Stay and Play and the Nurture groups get very stuck into a very squishy, smelly and tasty activicty. Looking at the grotesque works of Arcimboldo we decided to recreate our own pictures by printing fruit and vegetables. The beauty of this activicty is that it can be used for any age and ability, younger children have great fun exploring qualities and textures of the fruit and vegetables whilst parentsand older childen will enjoy the grotesque aspect of the activicty, trying to make something such as a face out of the fruit and vegetable prints.
Alfred Wallis introduced us to sea scapes and a niave basic style of painting, it also helped open eyes of participants and care providers of materials that can be used in painting - not many would presume ship paint and packing crates would become so sought after. We painted and made images with a great variety of meia from pastels, pens, paints, glue and collage with this activicty any thing goes. We used a variety of painting boards including cardboard (both primed and unprimed) and canvas primed paper. A large variety of materials proved very popular as it enabled each child/participant to do something different new and interesting, it did mean that participants learnt watching each other more than from what I could tell them. Some brilliant sea scapes were created with some really excellent attention paaid to the swirling, stormy,exspanse that is the sea, we had wild waves and calming, glimmering sheer blueness.
Matisse introduced us to the world of 'painting with sissors' or creating collages using tissue paper, crepe papers, coloured nettings, acetates and other partially transparent materials. We had two bases to be worked upon either clear acetate for a 'floating' picture and a window 'cut out' picture where the cut out areas can be coloured with tissue papers etc. We have great fun exporing the qualities of glue during this session as the acetae can hold quite a lot without tearing or breaking, it is also a great surface to push the paint about on. Having a picture that floated in mid air once finished was very interesting to most participants, they were very interested on how the pictures looked from the other side whilst they were creating them.
