String section

Here's my opening prelude for the kids next piece. I thought they could turn their minds to the characteristics of musical instruments. I was going to have a brain storming session, asking them to image I am a creature from another planet (which I am to them) and they have to describe the look of musical instruments to me in one word only. Like - curves, holes, keys, strings.....here endeth my personal knowledge of musical instruments........oh no........comb and paper.

Suppose we started with strings which obviously is the one that leads us most seamlessly into stitching. They could pick a shape from the Kandinskyesque drawings, half cut it out of their coloured double sided craft vilene, bend the shape back to revereal the reverse side and create a bit of texture then string it with a bit of perle cotton or whatever.

I was trying to impress upon them that in design repetition can be good but exact repetition can be boring so maybe the challenge should be to string each hole in a slightly different way. I plonked my sample here on top of my original drawing to photograph it and really like the effect so maybe they could back their piece with a bit of drawing as a finishing touch.

Half way through this project the school have dropped the bombshell that the result is to be a harmonious amalgam of finished pieces on permanent display in their memorial music suite. So no pressure then. Oh, and did I mention we only have three weeks to go? That would be 9 hours in real time. Was lying in bed this morning thinking about how to join the pieces speedily and effortlessly and came up with the idea of the plastic clothes tags I use for jewellery sometimes. Not fabulously beautifully but they can be dyed to make them less offensive. They are certainly fast and might prevent me from becoming furious.