Cartooning Workshop with Bradfield Dumpleton

Last week at co-op we had the pleasure of inviting local cartooning mentor, Bradfield Dumpleton to co-op. Bradfield has extensive experience working with children and school groups and our co-op children have boundless amounts of enthusiasm when it comes to cartooning, so we knew we were in for an interesting day.

Bradfield led the children through various drawing games before asking them what they'd like to draw… What mythical, made up, madcap creatures they could imagine for him to show them how to draw. For the next three hours we watched our children relax into a wonderful afternoon of cartooning. Fears and inhibitions were overcome as artists emerged from each child there. Some even surprised themselves! What a wonderful thing to witness! Bradfield was a warm and encouraging mentor whose passion for drawing is infectious - hopefully we'll be able to welcome him back to co-op some day soon!

Sharing Skills

Much of our talk at co-op lately has been about what skills we have between us that we can pool and share. Realising that creating a culture of sharing and learning is strengthening and nourishing for our group and its members, we aim to draw out those skills as we grow together. Adults learning from other adults inspires children to get involved and learn alongside their parents, or their peers. And finding skills that the children can share with each other is wonderful too! Kids are always so keen to learn what their friends can do…

Last week, one of the children facilitated a Manga drawing workshop while one of the parents facilitated a granny-square crochet workshop. Long held crocheting and manga drawing ambitions were fulfilled! And we got a start on preparing to yarn bomb our tree. By the end of the session, children were learning to crochet too! Some of the crocheting parents were rather keen to learn the art of manga, so we may need a repeat performance of that one at a later date!