• Following on the post about shooshing up old portraits, inspired by the work of children I met in Milan this week, here is a picture of me as Frans Hals’ The Laughing Cavalier! I thought I do it because my profile pic on FaceBook has been of me being an astronaut for a while and needs refreshing. Here’s the astronaut pic too. I did it because my facebook friends were posting picture of their alter egos. I wanted to be an astronaut when I was young. Now I’m older, to be a jolly old cavalier reprobate seems to be an equally splendid ambition!

  • Another great day at Longlevens. The children weren’t quite so hyper today I think that’s because they were all dressed up as book characters.

    I find group dynamics quite fascinating. I meet many groups of children in many different combinations. The children I saw today were essentially the same as the children I saw yesterday – but today, in their alter-identities, they were individuals whereas yesterday they were in uniform and so made up cohesive groups. A class of children in the same uniform work as one. A group of fairies, princesses, batmen, power rangers and Ben Tens want to be individuals.

    As yesterday, they did some lovely drawings. As ever, it’s quite fascinating how a group of children draw the same picture but put so much of themselves into the same character. Some add pattern, some understand my instructions quite differently to how I show them and do the most amazing things. With a bit of detective work I get to see how they are interpreting the instructions.

    Then there are the ones who say they can’t draw. What they mean is that theirs doesn’t look exactly like mine. Well, it never will, It will look different because we are all different. I think everyone can draw in the same way everyone can drive a car. But if you don’t actually do it and put the hours in, you will never get better or confident about it. So much in life is about putting in the hours.

    There I go on again! I’m going on because I’m very tired at the end of a string of School and Library visits and need a nice lie in tomorrow.

    Thanks for a great couple of days – and thanks for doing so much preparation, It made my visit really wonderful. Have a great Easter Holidays.


  • There was a lot of artwork on the walls of the Sir James Henderson School in Milan this week, But the self-prtraits as nobles of the middle ages really grabbed me. Having photos for the faces really made them look real. This looks like a great project to do. Maybe it helps that the faces kind of resemble the faces that you find in renaissance paintings. Maybe the thing to do would be to find the right time and place in history to take a portrait from that will fit your face. The first thing that comes to my mind is how Wayne Rooney would look good as King Henry VIII, so I did a mashup photo. See what you think?