We have been working this week on art inspired by Japanese printing and illustration. Continuing our puppet theme at St Sids, we have been making fish that will be jumping in and out of huge waves that we also have made. There were some interesting results, especially for the growth of the participants. There ability to move a puppet and understand that this needs to be something which is done both slowly and with care is really increasing. This type of motor control is difficult for the age group coming to the session, let alone their understanding why we are filming the puppets and how they will be used. Slowly, as our sessions grow, we can see this understanding growing a little bit at a time. Working with illustrator Lucy Richards has been a lot of fun. To get that watercolour effect on the textured paper we were using, she ground down chalk pastels and the children ‘painted’ with their fingers. This was a great success and the children enjoyed the textural approach to this and the bright colours they got to play with. We also made huge waves, as a set for the puppets, but it became very obvious that what they most enjoyed was playing in these themselves. We are going to use this ‘play’ approach next week, so check back to see our finished film soon.