Strange, Dark Mountains

I was working with a reception class today (ages 4/5) making settings for the characters they have created in response to the Matt Roby exhibition at Platform Gallery Clitheroe.

We used the game again where we combined three words (pick a card, any card style) and they had to create the scene from their words.

The combinations we ended up with were strange dark mountains, mysterious shiny forest, friendly white garden and calm shady room (although it must be said that calm shady room looks more like lurid, bonkers party).

They're not finished yet - this group has to make more trees (one boy was determined to do something with a pack of plastic forks he found and the trees are built on the forks) and then we are going to experiment with lighting and photographing them to see what difference lighting makes to the mood of the scene.

They were all a bit over-excited today as Matt Roby came into school to spend the day with them. I think they were initially a little disappointed that he didn't look like one of his sculptures, but they overcame that pretty quickly, wowing him with their imaginative worlds and listening intently as he told them about how he creates his work.