Getting Creative With School Kids at Village Green – again!

One of the Next Generation budding artists’ creation

This year’s Village Green Next Generation event was not as hot the last one. I mean that in a good way. Because the first year (2017) SEVEN hosted a drop-in art stall for the local school kids attending Metal’s pre-weekend festival we nearly melted.

Whether we were almost overcome by the merciless midday sun or a relentless confusion of children coming to cut, collage and create is debatable:

“As wave after wave of primary school kids and their teachers came to check out our art tables – think: mandala collage, collective doodling, and swing tag-making – it was all we could do to just muck in and make the most of it.

More gems you say? Certainly. Lost your prized sunglasses? We’ll help you find them. Want pictures of cars for your mandala collage? Coming up.”

Errgh! I’m feeling exhausted just thinking about it! But the upshot was we made note of what not to do next time…

Wish You Were Here?

For starters, this year, we had a theme: Wish You Were Here.

  • Postcards and luggage tags were the starting points for 2019’s miniature masterpieces
  • Our medium? Mostly collage. Think: animals, oceans, cars, stickers, old postage stamps – and, just the odd bit of bling!
  • While a huge roll of paper provided the backdrop for collective doodling – resulting in a kind of journey through stream of consciousness!

Boundaries v Boredom

Providing a starting point – however loose – definitely proved beneficial. The children were inspired to:

  • Remember journeys they’d taken
  • Imagine trips they’d love to go on
  • While others focused on the transport that would take them there
  • Or, wondered about the animals they might see …

One satisfied participant even commented:

“We thought it was going to be really boring, but it’s been really great!”

You can’t ask for much more than that, right?
Balloons, Breeze & Crawling on the Grass
Now we just have to fathom:

  • How to blow up numerous balloons without expiring – what seemed like an easy decorative addition soon became a lesson in breath control and our lack of lung capacity (apparently some tips on just how to blow up a balloon can be found here)
  • How to control Pritt stick usage – kids seem to be compelled to wind the glue up to the max, which results in mushed and broken glue sticks galore!
  • How to better manage breezy conditions – paperweights didn’t do much for our teensier collage cut outs which saw Kim crawling all over the grass to reclaim them!

All in All

Thanks to Metal Southend for the opportunity to share a few of SEVEN’s creative processes with some of our local kids. It’s always a pleasure and we take away so much in the form of memories and ideas!

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