Friday 8^th May

I’m a bit late in getting round to blogging about these workshops but here goes anyway. We began the day with all of the children in the Nead na Coille. They had great fun painting their teacups in the blue and white colours. The cups they had made previously had been painted a base colour of white to enable them to get straight into doing their patterns. They began by using paint brushes but then they swiftly moved onto using cotton buds as this encourages them to make shapes rather than painting the entire cup the one colour. Some of the children in the younger group also made some bunting when they had finished their cups. To do this they painted, stamped or used their hands to make marks onto the back of a roll of wallpaper which will be cut into triangles and sewn to wool to make bunting to hang around the finished installation adding to the party atmosphere.

The next group to attend workshops this day was the 1st & 2nd class. A lot of the 2nd class were missing as they had an optional half day in preparation for their First Communion the following day. Their cups had also been painted a base colour of white to enable them to get straight into painting the patterns. We had passed around numerous print outs of suggested shapes such as flowers, butterflies, ships, pirates, birds etc, to help get them started. They also used the cotton buds to make their designs. the buds proved much easier to control than a regular brush and they were surprised by the number of shapes they could be used to make: dots, stripes, waves, zig zags, spirals. Some of the children were finished their cups before the session was over so they went on to make bunting in the same was as the Nead na Coille group. 

 The final group to attend the workshops was the 5th & 6th Class. This was their first time taking part in the project so they were looking forward to finally getting stuck in! We spoke about the finished installation piece and what other items will need to be made over the coming weeks. They still had to make their teacups so we walked them through the process explaining how to rip the paper and what size prices are best suited to the task. They enjoyed the glueing process and all the cups were completed with handles and left to dry on the window sill over the weekend.