Prints

Yesterday was another atelier day, this time at my house with eight kids, ages four to seven. We were able to be outside which was wonderful for the kids because they were free to be messy with no stress, yay! I set up our new camping table and added another one on the end and we left out the chairs which was a brilliant idea because I think this also gave them lots of freedom (and less work for me setting up!).

We did the printing project from The Artful Parent and it was a big hit with everyone. You should have seen how concentrated they were, it was lovely. I saw many times that vague look and I knew they were in that little nook in the mind that I like to go when I draw. I'm starting to recognize that in the kids and it makes me happy for them.



All the moms came with frameless picture frames and we used the glass as a printing surface, in hindsight we might have looked for acrylic box frames, probably hard to find and expensive in France, but it would have been less cumbersome and less dangerous for them. The frames get washed a lot as the kids of course want to keep redoing their pictures, and that's the fun of it. We have a lavoir, a sort of square fountain in the yard so it made washing the frames easy and the kids adored the washing up part. One little girl even fell in the lavoir washing her hands, so yes the frames in acrylic would have been a good idea because luckily she didn't have one in her hands.



This is a messy project best left to a studio with washable floors or maybe best done outside. It's a good idea to have some old dishtowels and a water source nearby for washing the frames because you can't keep running back inside to do it and you'll have to do it a lot. It's also smart to string up a temporary laundry line in the house or the garden or wherever you end up doing it for hanging the art to dry because we didn't think it out too well and we had papers blowing in the garden. If you have a lot of kids maybe you'll want to mark the initials on the back of their paper before they print. Each kid did about eight or ten prints so it was really time consuming at the end asking tired kids "is this yours?" as we sorted through each one.

There were a few nice prints but overall the work results were average, not because of the kids but because it's not really one of those projects that lends itself to creating *gasp* masterpieces. The best part of this project is that it's so FUN and that the kids learn something. At one moment Amy, a little girl in the group screamed "mama it's like a photocopieuse!", which I think was a click moment in her head like "Ohhhh, so that's how it works" and that's why the project is so brilliant. The kids also looked for leaves in the garden and printed with those and they did this on their own, fun to watch because it was clearly another a-ha! moment for them.