Wonderful Willow

…and… we're back.  Our first project of the year is quite a change of pace and material.  It'll be a short project — maybe 3-4 weeks — which involves willow rods, masking tape, tissue paper and PVA glue.

On Saturday 1 March, The Guernsey Arts Commission is staging a lantern parade — the first of it's kind in Guernsey!  They're aiming for around 300 lanterns to be carried up through Town to Candie Gardens.  It will be quite a spectacle.  The parade will be lead by a UK drum performance group called Spark.  I'm very excited about this alone — check out the videos on their website!

Loving the concept of the event, I have secured the materials required for us to make our own lanterns and join the party!  I just hope all of our makers and families can come along!

Here's a few pics of the work so far…

Willow is beautiful material — not just to look at but also to work with.  We've already talked about coppicing and little about the many varieties.  You can read more, here.

I'm encouraging the makers to do everything themselves like cutting the willow and preparing the masking tape.  It seems like it's the first time many of them have handled masking tape and are quite surprised by some of it's properties.  New skills are being learned all the time — even seemingly simple things like tearing tape into regular lengths can be a fiddly task.

This week we'll be lofting up from the base to form the pyramid shape of the lantern.  It's amazing to see a three dimensional form suddenly spring out of such basic components.  My mind easily wanders to other ideas that could be made this way…