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DAY TWO - Blustery Day, Patches of Shower, and a Paint shortage!

I’m still pulling the blue paint out of my hair! This morning we reinstalled everything as clockwork, however found that the wind was far too high for Anoushka’s stand so she temporarily retired Marlene’s Treats so that her cake did not end up airborne. 

Later on in the morning, I had a rather enthusiastic helper in the form of 2 year old Maya, who ran around instructing other participants to paint where she told them, and then encouraged everyone to use their hands rather than paintbrushes. I was quite tempted to let her run the painting side as she was so confident (even when I told her paint wasn’t very tasty). Talking to her father we found that there was a severe lack of arts based after-school and weekend clubs, which is a real shame. For anyone in Brighton who’d like to know more about creating these activities, contact the Youth Arts Team at Brighton and Hove City Council, as they have a great pool of resources.

I then spent the afternoon giving an impromptu drawing class to the young lady in the spotted coat. After she drew a far superior snail, butterfly and forest for me, we drew each others portraits and decided that my eyes should be purple, not green. She then showed her father her collective work, and explained each piece perfectly.

We ran out of paint a few times over the day, as we had a rather wonderful set of women who collected around one board and encouraged onlookers to get involved. There’s nothing better than squeezing out a paint tube knowing that the rest of it’s been put to good use (or is on your face in my case). 

Concerning the art works, I had a great discussion with three ten year old boys and their parents about body parts, all of the tendons and weird and wonderful things that can be viewed inside the human body, as a lot of the work in the exhibition deals with the un-hidden, anti-glamorous, multi faceted body. I showed them how the human heart works, and got them to draw strange body parts. 

Tomorrow we’ve got Poetry workshops, Quick Draw! and a very special afternoon ran by Brighton Draw. This is all weather permitting, so if we’re not there, we’ll be cowering under a tree until the rain stops!

Natalie x 

Children are brilliant and can totally get away with bossing people around. If I went around saying ‘PAINT FINGERS!’ to random strangers I’d get sectioned.