Back to School

Hi everyone, a few weeks ago I was asked to join a group of artists volunteering for Grimm and Co,  to work with an Infant school.  The task was simple, speak to the children and ask them to describe a fairytale setting, so that I could paint this on a canvas in acrylic. For example, I asked the children where they think their fairytale characters would live. They had to describe the sky the terrain, and so on. So as you can expect I was bombarded with some fantastic ideas. Some children said, "lots of fluffy clouds" while others said, "paint a castle, I want a witch flying in the sky, a beanstalk", you get the gist. You can imagine how the event went on. Simple don't you think? OMG.

These children were all aged between 4 to 6 years old and there were over 100. We all took turns each taking small groups. I was painting, another artist was using charcoal to draw different characters on a flip chart, another was using markers and so on...

Well I took 9 groups in total, painting 9 pictures. Whatever they said, I painted. It was a great event at the infant school but very stressful and very, very exhausting. Can you imagine little kids screaming at the top of their voices......"Oh miss draw this.....oh miss draw that....I want an orange castle....". Anyway I made it to the end and survived to tell the tale.

Later we presented the schools with the paintings. At this point I must add that I only had 15 minutes with each group as we had a lot of children to go through and it was NOT MY BEST WORK. Usually it takes me hours or days to complete one painting. Nevertheless I did it. That's me done. As they say....'I came, I painted, I went home and passed out'.

Oh to top it off the newspaper came too, WONDERFUL! Oh well I know the children and the teachers as well as Grimm and Co appreciated them very much, bless their little socks.

I would like to thank Grimm and Co for giving me the opportunity to exercise my skills to the max. To be honest I was proud of myself for stepping up to the challenge. Well done fellow artists, Brian and Chris.

Here are a few pictures of the event below.

Love and peace

Samira