Creativity at Work

We interrupt the usual order of things to bring you a little look at what I have been making at work.  You must know by now that my day job means that I get to create at The Lightbox, but I thought I would share with you something that I am really, really proud of recently.

I made this Enormous Crocodile character hat for an upcoming workshop in Half term - my job means that I work with school visits, adults and all the holiday activities and so there are so many things to make!  Ace!

We have a Quentin Blake exhibition coming up - which I am super excited about as he is one of my all time favourite illustrators!  This means that during the holidays we try to tailor some of the workshops to the current exhibition - cue my excitement to get creative with his Roald Dahl characters. One day I want to own a Quentin Blake print, I just need the cash and to decide which one of course!

Now, I have made UFO costumes, 3D jigsaw heads and many a diorama, but I still get really happy when something just works how I want it to and everyone else likes it!  There is nothing like the added pressure of making sure that your colleagues and all the people who are due to use or make something similar, like what you have made too.

The workshop is for children to make their own character costume for some of Roald Dahl's much loved characters, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr Fox, The Witches, BFG and of course The Enormous Crocodile.  So this means samples of all of these things so that the children and their adults will have an idea of how to make their costume.  It will by no means be the whole thing and so a few little elements have been made so that the idea is there.

This of course will be The Enormous Crocodile and I love it!  Made from card, tissue paper, green paper and paint, I think he looks pretty cool.  I know what I am going to be for Halloween now!  ha, ha.

Which Roald Dahl character is your favourite?  I love the way Quentin Blake draws and gets the personality of the characters just right.  Dahl and Blake had a great relationship and it just worked.

Right, off to do my next thing, printing samples for a school visit this week, busy busy.
H, xxx


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Love it: Our Childhood Storybooks

This week is National Storytelling week and as the website tells us: Storytelling can be found enriching lives everywhere: from nurseries to schools, from bereavement aids in hospitals to strengthening communication in the business sphere, from reminiscence centres to support groups for those with special needs, and in theatrical performances.  The sharing between teller and listener empowers, feeding the imagination from one generation to the next.

Love it: Matilda the Musical

Last week I was lucky enough to get a ticket (via my very lovely sister-in-law's school) for Matilda at the theatre.  Now firstly a few things that you need to know about me is that I LOVE going to the theatre and I LOVED Matilda the book by Roald Dahl and I LOVED the 1996 film with Danny DeVito as Mr Wormwood and Pam Ferris as the very scary Trunchball!  So really, this was always going to be good!

And also what you might not already know about the Stage version is that the song lyrics have been written by Tim Minchin, which is also a big favourite of mine and in my opinion is a great match for Roald Dahl's story.  I have been meaning to see it for ages and as you might remember it was on my Christmas Wants list, so this was a very very early Birthday Present from my sister-in-law and Brother (my birthday is in April!)

So, after a brisk walk from Waterloo to Covent Garden I arrived at the Cambridge Theatre very excited to be going to finally see the show!  I was literally like a kid in a candy store, so easily pleased!

The stage surround was a mark of what was to become, with its building blocks and Matilda Light box letters intriguing the audience!  The show was BRILLIANT and had the right mix of humour for children and adults.  There were alot of child actors and one can hope they are just as cool in real life as in the show.   

The basic storyline of Matilda for those who don't know, is a girl grows up in a family that don't really want her.  She loves books, they love TV; she loves learning, they think she's stupid.  They send her to a school with a mean headmistress and Matilda finds she has powers to move things with her mind to scare and help people and helps her lovely teacher to claim her rightful home from the mean headmistress after a bit of fun along the way!

Lots of stage movement with chairs and tables popping up from the floor and shelves coming in from the wings meant that the show was fast paced and fun filled.  Just the way I like it.  I used to work in a theatre and my degree gave me the opportunity to design stage sets and so how the stage design fits the storyline is very interesting for me.

My favourite song of the whole show was the song they sang on the first day of school which you can hear here.  It was really clever how they sang the whole alphabet and what you can't see in the clip is how they moved around on a big set of gates to the song to push through building blocks with the letters on them so that the whole alphabet was shown on the gates.

After an interval Ice cream, entertainment from Mr Wormwood and the rest of the show, it was over!  There were standing ovations and happy faces.  I bought myself a mug on the way out which I thought work might appreciate, given that I work with children most of the time!  What do you think?

What's your favourite Musical and why?  There are only a few musicals that I would go to again and again and Matilda and The Lion King I think would be my two!

Then it was once again a brisk walk back to the station, luckily there was no snow!  One of the things I miss about not being in London is being able to walk about at night and seeing it all lit up.  So I thought a few photos might be nice.  You can even see St Paul's cathedral in the second one all lit up, so pretty.  Considering that during the day London can be so busy and sometimes look pretty dirty, night-time London just can't be beaten.

Loving It

H