Having received the design brief from Michael ( lines, strokes and dots reflecting European dangerous animals) Year 6 from St Francis of Assisi, set about creating the designs to paint onto the soldiers costumes. After a false start using thin crayons, it was quickly realised that the designs needed to be made using a media that was going to be as near to the finished width as possible – Textease proved useful in ICT, otherwise the children painted their designs on paper. It was then time to transfer the designs to the costumes – a bit of a scary undertaking at first due to the fact that once the dye was applied there was not going back. Initially we began with a small group of children, working in pairs, on one costume at a time. This first afternoon was quite slow but allowed us to identify issues and problems (dye is easily spilled so the lower the container the better; the lightest shade of paint , the pink, needed to be used very sparingly; getting a design symmetrical is more difficult in reality than it seems!). After this, we went into mass production… organised chaos is the best description, with different costumes at different stages of the whole process depending on whether or not the pupils were available. It was great to see the wide range of designs – no two costumes being identical – coming to fruition. They may not be perfect but they were the children’s own work and every child in Year 6 had the opportunity to be involved. When they see the costumes being worn in the Opera by the Year 5 pupils, I am sure they will be thrilled to see their costume on the stage and to know that they played a small but important part in the whole production.
Sandra Watt
Year 6