Willow Workshop

Today we had a workshop with a 3rd year student on how we could create a structure using willow and masking tape to secure. It was a really interesting workshop for me as I am hoping to work on a main carnival costume my self when not teaching in the school in Weymouth. I want to make it a larger center piece for the children to carry as well as wearing thier individual costumes.

Sarah cleared up a few points for me:

1. I originally said that I could create an octopus shape and have a horizontal bar at the base for the children to hold up but she pointed out that from her previous experience holding something that large up for a long period of time will be very uncomfortable and as they will be so young they may loose interest or struggle so we decided long poles would be better as they could be carried at waist height and is alot more comfortable.

2. That making such a large sructure I would have to bare in mind transporting it to Weymouth and being able to fit it through doors so maybe to make the body shape and all the legs seperately and fix it all together in Weymouth. After more thought I came up with the idea of attaching the willow tenticle structures onto the main body with purely fabric so that they can be moved around by the children holding them up with the same pole structure as the body.

Here are some photos of experimentation and learning how to create a sphere in willow.

Here I was trying to get the rough shape that an octopus body would be but I found it was harder to do than I thought.

A couple of covering tips Sarah gave us were:

• Cover the frame in cling film if you want to give the structure a thick covering because this will stop the  wet fabric or tissue paper slumping down or ripping. 
• The structures can be covered in fabric pieces dipped in pva glue and water or hand made paper or a strong version of tissue paper. This we were told is very good for a structure that might have light shon from the inside as it has a translucent effect.