She loves paint!

Then she noticed the blue paint tray!

She REALLY enjoys the paint! Ha!

Trying to cover every part of her body with paint!

We got there just to late, to stop her tipping the whole paint tray upside down!

Trying to give her nanny a cuddle , when she is most covered in paint….typical!

Trying to pick the tube up but it is just a little too heavy for as yet.

Playing with a new toy!

Oh look … a lovely smile under all that paint. Lovely end to a joyful session.

The after-school session was fun today. This young man was painting side two of his four sided vase.

His vase drying.

This young lady is starting a new project of her own choice…a flamingo! She drew the flamingo first, then she checked on the phone, to see what one really looked like. Her first drawing was very good, the second one was even better.

Once she had made the basic design in paper, she wrapped it in masking tape and then started on the plaster of paris.

Do you remember the young man making a camera last week?

Well here it is finished. he then had people draw a “passport” drawing of ourselves, so he could hand it to us, when he “took” our pbhotograph. What a character and a great artist.

Collaging his “ball and pot’ container, using 1960′s newspapers.

A “slide” built by two of the boys.

Although it was tough for her she did try some new toys. Brave little girl.

She did  seem to like the fly swat….

…. even got a “wow” out of her, when she saw the flyswat paint mark on the paper!  Hope she will be a little happier next, she is so cute.

The next session was an Art and Craft session with 3 budding artists. Today l decided to do some cutting and sticking wit the children. This young lady really didn’t want to use scissors as she was worried about them. She asked to paint for a while. I knew she would want to just ” swish ”  around in it before she started work…and l was right!

The boys want to paint too, so as they were both excited, l decided it might calm them down!  It did luckily. The little one in  green was painting helicopters , one Irish and one English.

The other little artist painted pictures for his mummy, his daddy and his little sister, who is being born tomorrow! The next three images are so cute. They show the expresstions of this young man explaining to me the following and l quote …

“At my nursery we were told that nowhere in the world are you allowed to be a copy cat” !

This caused a problem today, when the youngest of the group was kindly advised by he, that she was coping what he had just said and that was wrong! Um! Difficult one for me to sort out . Ha!

Making a sticker picture.

General chit chat going on.

Telling the boys about her art work and they did listen.

Isn’t it beautiful ?

Then at 3.3 my two little Monday after-school club arrive. They are so open to new experience, get excited at painting and are lovely to work with. Today l was teaching the children how to weave, we then cut it into a flower shape and stuck it onto a card. Then they worked into the flower.

Some of the cutting was a bit hard , so l helped a little.

Great creations.

Then they painted the plaster of paris bird bodies they created last week.Before they painted them,  we talked about where the head was and where did it stop? Did they want 2 legs or more and what colour did they want to paint it?

” Sharing ” their pencils. They had seen some of my envolopes and wanted to write some letters! So firstly they decided to decorate the envolopes.

This is a letter to me…so sweet!

Then great excitment….my new board is unveiled!

Now the fun begins. Bear in mind none of these children have been to my studio before, so have no idea what they are about to be allowed to do !

The birthday girl was so excited, when she saw the footprints she had made!

Being helped by mum to make her first hand prints………..

…….then she was off on her own!

One of the children started to paint their legs, because they wanted to do footprints. Let me explain that statement to you! Some children quite often paint the top of their hands and the front of their legs, when they are not used to making their hand and foot prints. They have to be shown which side of their foot or hand to paint. It can be quite fun to watch! Ha!

I think they are enjoying themselves.

They all seemed to be busy in their own little worlds.

This little one just did his own thing…great to watch. This is the age that l am used to having in the studio and he is behaving as expected.

Once they were fed up of painting their legs, they went onto their hands!

Cake and time to sing Happy Birthday.

She loved blowing out the 3 candles.

The next few images show our Birthday Girls’s happiness, after we all clapped when she had blown out the candles!

So cute x

The Birthday Girl handing out small cakes for the children and cake for adults….all very yummy!

“Hey guys … remember me”!

“Can we have seconds, please”?

It was a really lovely party.

She was so surprised and excited that mixing the blue on her fly swap, with the yellow paint on the paper…..she made green!

Then she went to give her fellow male artist a fly swat. He was not interested but this did not seem to deter her!  She chased him round the room trying to change his mind but the man was not for turning!

He took refuge with his nanny! I know it is awful to say but it was so funny to watch!

She wanted to paint in the circles but couldn’t find the brush. She was pondering this and went off to the toy bucket.

She found a “Bob the Builder ” toy and was looking at his hat. She suddenly put the top of the head into the paint and then down onto the paper…a circle! She was so excited she forgot all about finding a brush!

This is not a good image but it was so full of life and exactly how they were, l couldn’t not put it on the blog.

They were so full of mischief and fun….!

They know they are not allowed into my kitchen but they definity push the boundries!

I love friday mornings.

She was playing with the paint on the tube and then with her hands.

Then she decided to put her foot in the paint and then did a footprint.

 Then she decided to put both her feet into the paint!

She thought this was so funny.

Then she decided to paint my toes!

As she was on her own today, l decided to bring out the tunnel for her to play with.

She laughed when she saw the “big and small” tunnels ! It was a fun session.

Today we had a new little one added to our class. You might recognise her from the Art and Craft sessions she used to come too.  She has been upgraded you could say! I felt she would find it fun to mix with older children. She is very shy but the other children were so sweet to her!

Exchanging ideas over a Father’s Day card dedsign.

Trying to explain how she wanted her witch’s hat to look like! It appeared l was not “understanding” !

The start of a Father’s Day card , he was quite pleased with his heart! .

A lot of great “creating” going on.

Talking and singing to a baby doll.

This is a plaster of paris doll being created. AND … no matter what you might think, tthe colour she is painted is…PEACH! The young lady concerned, spent a long time mixing colours to reach the correct colour.

It was an interesting day .

First off was a Mark Making session for three little ones.

Not only do they use this pipe to make marks and for looking at each other. He has discovered that you can make noises too. He was doing a very deep sound…very funny!

After all that excitment what does a chap do…lie down of course!

Making Marks and playing in her own little world too.

He isn’t sure that there is room to put that dinasaur into the tube…um!

Using her nanny as a settee, she survays the scene before her!

Playing the “stuff” the pipe game, they never seen to be fed up of it.

Having fun at cleaning up time!….Look at the colour of the water! Ha!

The next session was an Art and Craft session. Today l decided to do some Big Drawing play.

Encouraging her to move around the paper.

Also encouraging her to do BIG circles. 

At one point mum “improved” her drawing, her daughter was NOT amused. Here she is correcting mum’s “help”. She certainly has a mind of her own!

Just for “end of lesson fun”, l gave this new toy. A music mat which also has animal sounds.

She really enjoyed it and thought is was great fun.

The mix of After-School children was different today. This young lady was busy painting her crocodile. I had found some paper l thought was just like crocodile skin and the children were quite impressed !

This young lady also creating a crocodile, normally comes on a Monday. She came today, so she can have older children as mentors. She really seemed to enjoy creating and playing them them.

The two crodile creators also made “hand” puppets with many goggly eyes!

Here is a story being created, about monkeys. She is then going to make a theatre and shadow puppets. All very exciting.

This is the drawing of some clothes we are making for her toys. Unfortunetly l seemed to fail this young lady…no purple cloth or the right shade of green! Oops! I must try harder!

Here she is checking out buttons , she wanted white ones…but again l didn’t have the right colour of white or the size or enough! Ha!

 A Father’s Day card being created. She had also been stuffing her soft toy creation, which is going to be a Beaver.

Once again l am reminded why l love my job!

Experimenting with a new toy…a pig shape.

Peep-a-boo!

She loves painting herself.

This young man put everyone else to shame today…he must have played with almost every one today ! Here are just a few of them. He had a great morning bless him:)

This was a very sweet moment. This is the first time these two have really communicated with each other. The older girl painted the younger girl’s toenails green.

This young lady loves putting things in her mouth. But this was just so cute! Ha!

Finding out what marks this tool makes.

What a beautiful smile.

They made some good marks this morning.

Two of my After-School children created some glass painting to-day. First of all they created a drawing of what they wanted to put on their vase.

“Building a beautiful building” … his words not mine!

Painting wings for his “big” bee! He is painting on water resistant paper.

This is an amazing observational drawing from one of my young students .

Then he started to create it….this is just the beginning!

This is called “Putting the bricks away” apparently!

Playing with the “ball in the cup” we made earlier!

The perfect end to a great day in the studio!

I had all my three children today, in the Art and Craft session . I told them that l was going to show them so magic!

Each child was given a large piece of paper and some wax crayons.and were told they could draw what ever they wanted. I explain that they had to really press down on the paper with the wax crayons. It had to encouraged the young girl to cover the whole page. By the time she is just a year or so older, like the boys, she will find it a lot easier.

 After they had finished their drawings or patterns, then l showed them how the magic happened..

She was very excited when she saw what she had created! It was done by covering the wax image with a watercolour wash!

He wanted to use an cother olour other than black … to see if it made a differance! It didn’t! But l love that fact that he wanted to experiment ! Yeh!

The other young man was very excited too, when he saw what he had created.

This young lady was given a smaller piece of paper this time and some more wax crayons. This time she really went mad….making big swishing mark from left to right. Great to watch!

Then she did the same thing with her red paint. In fact she covered the other people’s papers too, she was so enthusiastic!

She really enjoyed herself. Infact the boys seemed to love it too. A great session l think and many lessons were learnt.

The next images are of my After-School children. For some reason my images are not up to standard today, so l am sorry.

Today we are making sea scenes inside boxes. Firstly they have to choose their boxes and then paint them. They decided on blue for the sea, yellow for the sand and gold for the other places!

While the paint was drying, they asked if they could have their faces painted again. One rabbit, with her own special design and a butterfly.

Then back to Art. They are now going to draw, colour and cut out their fishes.

Then the part they loved best … adding stickers!

Then it was snack time … time to share a rather large banana!

Then they were back to creating again. This time putting the final decoration to the inside of their boxes. Glitter glue!

Then l added their fish and hey presto….beautiful fish scene boxes.

 One of the mum’s asked if  l could clean their faces. Took a face flannel and some water and hey presto..clean faces.

“How did you do that, they normally create and get water every where”?

“45 years of experience ”

“For sale….£100000000000″ and they had signed their names.

So asked l asked them if they would like their own exhibition and they shout out very loudly….

“Yes “.

So that’s how the idea of an  Exhibition came about and as it would be around my Year anniversary … why not?!!!! So that’s how this exhibition came about.

I was over whelmed at the response of the children….they had saved most of their projects…so sweet. The only problem l had was how to display it all in my small studio! I managed in the end as you will see from the images below.

This strip of painting on the wall, was created by a group of Mark Making children.

This is the baby room with some of the children’s work on the wall.

This is the main studio beginning to take shape.

Can you spy a familar figure on the chair? The Incredible Hulk.

Not one of my best images but l am so proud of all my young artist’s work.

Here’s to the next year.

Having fun “splattering” Lynda with the flyswats !!!!!

She really enjoys the texture of paint!

Running around just for fun but her hands are still covered in paint!

Learning to paint the pipe!

Then doing the same game the others play…fill the pipe with toys!

Small play going on…great to see.

Creating the same old circles and still being happy about it, as she does every week. Lovely to watch her excitment and that gorgeous smile.

What a lovely note to finish on. That smile just lights up the room.

Next came an Art and Craft session with this lovely little girl. Today we started to create a puppet. At first she had to stuff a tube and the screw up some newspaper to make a head. Then the two are joined!

Then it is time to paint it. She experimented with lots of different brushes and colours. She might have broken my record for the number of paint brushes, used in one session…ha!

So also tried using her right and left hands at the same time.

And of course, all artists sign their work.

The finished piece….gorgeous.