Imagined Worlds and Characters: part 3
On to week 3 of the workshops and moving onto developing our little characters created in the earlier sessions. The young creatives had a choice of how they wished to make their characters – either using clay or junk modelling. Fortunately my years of hoarding pays off when it comes to such workshops – I have an array of materials for the children to use – my studio is bursting with all kinds of materials I have collected, bought or had donated. From stones, shells, tin cans and yarn, to beads, pom-poms, cardboard and crystals!
There was a fairly even split between those who chose junk modelling and those who chose clay. For the clay I introduced all the amazing tools I was donated which give the children lots of opportunities to carefully craft their clay with interesting textures and tools for cutting, blending and smoothing.
I gave the children quite a free choice with how the wished to developed their characters, but giving support and guidance to help them practically realise their ideas. I was careful not to give them ideas which were to prescriptive as I wanted their individual creativity to shine through. And it certainly did. Often my workshop involve a wee bit of chat and giggles – usually about what they’re working on, sometimes just friends catching up… but these workshops were soooo quiet!! Such concentration and they were so focused developing their ideas. I am so glad I didn’t direct these workshops too much as I feel this would have really cramped their creativity. Amazing results and so many different ideas.
