Even Mr Pumpkinhead needs his 5-a-day, right? Happy Halloween everyone!

I've just finished my last day working in the Art Department. It's been a great final week. Busy and varied, as usual. I made sure that the materials cupboards and paper store were fully restocked and the that the accounts and paperwork were in 'hand-over' order, so towards the end of the week I had the time and opportunity to do some creative stuff - printing trials.
Later in the term the pupils will be exploring dry-point etching on Perspex. Early experiments weren't getting the desired results so I decided to have a go.
It's an effective printing technique and a lot less fuss than metal plate acid etching. With this type of printing an image is scored into the surface of a piece of Perspex (acrylic sheet) with a hard needle point. Ink is then smoothed or rolled on to the surface and the excess rubbed away. A piece of specialist printing paper is soaked in water (to loosen the fibres) then dried off between blotting paper. Then you are ready to print.
I spent…

Yesterday, I traveled here...

 ... for the Bath Kids Lit Festival.

First stop was Hayesfield School where I talked to 180 Year 7 girls about my favourite subjects, story-telling and drawing. I went well over my allotted hour (with permission), stretching the creative writing workshop until the very end of the school day, with some startling results. It turns out that Hayesfield girls are excellent liars! In a good way, obvs! We had stories about giraffes, vampires, helicopters, cannibals and Justin Beiber. There was some real writing talent too. Very impressive. As was their black and purple-trimmed uniform, which is probably the coolest I've EVER seen. Wish I'd had a uniform as chic as that when I was at school!

Thank you to Jennifer from the Festival and to everyone at Hayesfield, especially Gill, for a brilliant event and for making me so welcome. I enjoyed it enormously and could have stayed all afternoon!

That is, unless Sam Eades from Headline hadn't dragged me away …