Summer Sessions Confirmed!

Summer sessions begin on Monday the 26th and for the next 3 Mondays ending the 16th of August.

The session will begin at 10am with a themed craft session for 45 minutes with drink and biscuits, followed by 15 minutes of play dough session.

Tea, Coffee or juice and a home made cake will be provided for carers during the play dough session.

You can book single or multiple sessions and this can be done by sending an email with your requirements to lorraine@littlepainters.co.uk.

Please note that each session is tailored for the exact number of children attending, so booking is essential.

American Indian Art

Every week we have a brand new theme and for this most recent session we focused on American Indian art. This consisted of dream catchers, totem poles, Indian head bands and Apache horses.

 

 

 

The children really enjoyed painting and making the different activities and as you can see some of them were proud to show off their hats. One little girl even wore her head band all through the week until it finally broke! Its really lovely to hear that the sessions have been enjoyed by the children and this is important because it is through their enjoyment that they become more creative and accomplished Little Painters.

 

 

new sessions and summer sessions

The current block of Little Painters sessions have finished for the half term holidays and we are currently taking bookings for the next batch of 7 sessions begining on the 7th June. If this will be your first time at Little Painters then you do not need to commit to these 7 and are more than welcome to book the first seesion to see if it is right for you and your child/children.

We are also currently arranging Summer Sessions for new, old and existing Little Painters on a session by session basis. Also older siblings will be able to participate in activities. As with normal Little Painter sessions each will have its own unique theme and activities. Each individual session should be booked in advance so that I can determine numbers.

Hope to see you all there.

Lakenheath Middle School UK day

Lakenheath Middle School recently held its 'UK day’. This is an annual special event whereby all students at the school are excused from their regular schedule for the day and instead take part in a number of British themed workshops delivered by British presenters and experts. The aim of the event is to give students a fun experience of all things 'British'.

I was invited to attend as a presenter for this event and gave a short power point presentation on British designers and the let the students design their own t shirts loosely based on British influence.

 The session went well and the students really seemed to enjoy themselves and we got some excellent feedback such as:-
"awesome"
"I learned a lot"
"can we do it again next year!"

 
I really enjoyed myself too, and the students were a pleasure to teach and look forward to performing similar sessions in the future.

end of term easter session

A big thank you to all you Little Painters who turned up to the special Easter Session and impressed me with some of your artistic contributions and interpretations to the theme. I hope you especially enjoyed the Easter egg hunt and the surprise confectionery that we added to your expertly decorated Easter baskets. See you all soon!

sessions resume this monday!

After what seems like a very long time away (1 week break) we are back on Monday and looking forward to seeing you all again. For those of you who have so far not been able to come due to lack of spaces, if you are quick there are a couple of spaces that have opened up for this week only so drop me a mail if you are interested.

more taster sessions

Just wanted to make a very quick announcement to say that I have decided to run with another 5 more taster sessions which will (once they are complete) be a good cut off point to start block bookings. This will provide parents and carers a little more flexibility leading up to that point. Once details and conditions of the block bookings have been finalised this will be made available on this website and via email.

ely weekly news article

We got into the local paper which was good to see. Even more surprising was that we also had an article in the previous weeks Cambridge Evening News which I unfortunately missed at the time. Nothing like being kept in the loop!

ely weekly news

Have been informed that our article should appear in this weeks edition of the Ely Weekly News. Ironically I found out from one of our new arrivals that we had in fact appeared in last Thursdays edition of the Cambridge Evening News. I'm afraid I didn't get to see the paper so I am not sure whether a picture of any of our little painters got published, but if it did this could obviously raise the sale value of their masterpieces ;-D

penguins and polar bears

A big thank you to those of you who attended the first taster session, and I think you will agree a lot of fun was had by all. I was very impressed with the creativity of all the little painters and look forward to seeing many more works of art from them. As you know the theme for that session was penguins and polar bears and I have been looking hard at the next sessions theme. I am pleased to announce that it will be "Australia", and to get an idea please see some of the pictures in a previous post.

If all goes to plan, I might even be setting the mood so that we are all working with traditional aboriginal music playing in the background.

As you will know we also had a visit from the Ely Weekly News, and their photographer took many pictures. For those parents who would like to know, unfortunately we will not be appearing in this weeks paper (due to a busy news week!) but hopefully we might make it in the following weeks edition. If I get any more information on this I will let you all know as soon as I do.

Look forward to seeing you all in the next session!

picture examples #2

Here we have another two fine examples of art work that have been produced by little people and both very effective in their own way. The first picture is an abstract and is a completely composed from the imagination of the artist. I haven't enquired as to the little painter's take on their abstract piece however I personally think that the picture depicts a busy Christmas street scene ....and hey look, that's Santa in the doorway!
The picture is part wash and is quite intriguing.


For the next picture, although not exactly abstract, has been painted in a very loose and free manner, which given the vibrant use of colour works fantastically well.

The use of different sizes of fish give the picture that extra dimension, and the lovely crisp white bubbles just brings the scene to life.

I think the fish look very well cared for and happy. Well done to the little painter who created this masterpiece!

picture examples #1

The first couple of pictures were created very soon after looking at real world examples of aboriginal art with the child. For the very first picture, supervision was required due to the age of the child. The shapes were created by reusing everyday items (such as a jar top) and the results are actually excellent considering that it was created by a child of 14 months old.

The way in which this child has kept the shapes spaced uniformly and in circular movements with guidance works particularly well, as does their imperfect blurring at the top which kind of adds to the effect (an almost cloud-like red sky).

The next picture required slightly more mentoring and was created by a 4 year old child. It put together a few different art techniques, which required a period of drying. This period was the hardest part of the picture since the child was extremely keen to continue :) so we therefore began work on another piece and once finished returned back it once it was totally dry. Again the picture uses and perfects similar techniques that was gained from the first picture and is slightly more intricate and colourful. This time as you might be able to see, the artwork is not abstract and forms an image. Can you see what it is is yet!

This final picture for today was incredibly simple for the child to create since it used and helped improve their skill in cutting card, and felt pieces and bringing the composition together. Their handprints work particularly well as wings, and I generally find that getting messy is usually the favorite part of drawing and painting sessions. Using and experiencing their sense of touch and being creative opens their mind to lots of interesting possibilities and is a great mechanism of expression.

Great fun was had in making these pictures and as I hope you agree the results were fantastic! Hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

coming soon - art gallery!

Very soon I shall upload various examples of artwork created during Little Painter trial sessions.

Keep an eye out for these to get an idea of some of the projects that will be undertaken.