The Landscape Around Us!

The third Summer Workshop, this one funded by The Arts Society Kennet & Swindon, encouraged children attending to build a picture using coloured tissue paper glued to a card backing. Examples of different sorts of landscape were given on an A4 sheet, and they were surrounded by landscapes on the walls of the gallery.
It seemed that all children attending created something they were pleased with, although maybe the the concept of landscape is quite difficult to grasp as a child. I think it might be a bit like talking about the wonderful views in the Lake District to a child in the back of a car, it takes a while to understand the idea.
Creating a picture with tissue paper is an impressive skill in itself, so here are a few photos of works made on the day:

 I really like the photo above because although we avoided photographing children's faces, this girl had a face on her T shirt, giving rather a surreal effect. Children are shy of helpers at the workshops, and so it's not possible to find out much about why they produced the pictures in the way they did. Although the picture below produced by a 3 year old is entitled 'Messy Me' which gives a clue to how he felt about it.

 In the one below, the coloured tissue paper has been stuck over the frame

 and this one is constructed of screwed up tissue paper which gives a 3 dimensional, uneven quality to the picture.

 Here are siblings posing with their pictures

 and a couple more siblings

and a close up of the one on the left featuring a much loved toy

 I think this boy took the task seriously and achieved an excellent landscape.

Don't miss the final workshop this Wednesday 22 August 11am-1pm. It's entitled 'Put Yourself in the Picture!' and involves drawing a self portrait on a ceramic tile or on paper and then decorating a ceramic frame to put it in.