Transfer day

Spent today working with some children. It was very pleasant, I had worked with them last year, just one morning a week over the summer holidays. We worked on a number of simple arty crafty skills. These included tie and dye, clay work, transfer painting amongst others. We had some good fun.

These same children requested that I came back to work with them again. They range in age from 3 to 9. Not my preferred age group I must admit, as I definitely relate better to hormonal adolescents . However flattery won the day. I have not seen some of them for a year, and they succeeded in astonishing me, by remembering everything we had done when we last met. Their recall was far better than mine. How embarrassing is that?

They wanted to do transfer painting with crayons again. So yesterday I went into the local Asda branch and bought some cheap white T shirts ( 2 for £1.00). They are cotton, but they do take transfer crayons well.

I cut some thin printing paper down to size to fit the front of the T shirt and smaller pieces for the sleeves. Pencils were banned, they just drew and coloured with the transfer crayons. Having to read the colours on the crayons as the colours do not relate very well to the final transferred colours. The 3 year old was helped by the others.

No messing - we did lots of drawing first, and then the final design was put together. I love the spontaneity of this age group - none of that angst of adolescents bleating - I cannot draw!.. ......

so refreshing.

They proudly wore their T shirts all day...................... such joy.

One little girl even bought her tie dye from last year to proudly show me.... her mother says it hangs on her wall. Maybe a textile artist of the future... I hope so.

Yesterday I indulged myself by spending the whole day drawing..... my hands are stained with black permanent ink, will try and share the drawings with you tomorrow.

In half an hour our water will be turned off........ England is having awful water problems at the moment. We have plenty of fresh water stored for the animals to drink , and have put some aside for my painting too. The water butts in the garden are full as well...... one advantage of all the rain we have had. Lets hope the taps will run with water again before too long. Have been joking with dh that I will probably have to use up some of his stock of beer to wash my hair...... he's not impressed!