As ever, I offered our family friendly activities at the "Aspiring Artists" table at the back of the Giftshop. This, combined with chocolate chip cupcakes had the entire family in raptures. The children happily were choosing plaques to paint from our collection when another one of our artists popped into the Gallery.
Margaret Harding from York lives and breathes art. She quilts, paints and creates every day of her life. Her agreeable husband Alan goes along for the ride. Margaret had a box full of additional plagues to increase our stock and immediately volunteered to mix paints and run a kids' painting workshop. Right then and there...
Alan, resigned to his fate, settled on one of our comfy couches with the Weekend Australian newspaper. Margaret busied herself with our younger visitors. Artistic endeavour knew no bounds. The children had an absolute blast, whilst Mum and Dad, Angela and David, were free to browse in the Gallery.
At the completion of their masterpieces, the family departed, to return later to pick up the plaques when dry. As they walked out, our next budding artist, Owen raced in. Owen and his sister Olivia are already well known to us. Olivia, in high school and much more composed than her exuberant little brother, followed him in more sedately.
Sitting at the painting table, they launched into producing their own works of art. The air was buzzing with chatting and laughter. Their plaques finished, Owen asked Margaret to paint his face. Very soon afterwards, we had a tiger in our midst...
Margaret and Alan had driven from York to drop off the plaques, one of her bags for the Gallery and a superb new painting named "Winter Sky". Instead, she found herself orchestrating a lively and animated kids' workshop. She loved every second...
Naturally shattered at the end of this impromptu session, Margaret was revived with a fortifying glass of vino. Alan was still placidly reading the paper. And then, in a moment of complete insanity, Margaret offered her services on other occasions...
In the meantime, whilst Margaret recovers, she has given me a much-appreciated hand to continue our painting "parties" with very little effort on my part. We now have little pots of different colours made up, covered in glad-wrap and ready to go. Our shelves are bulging with plaques waiting to be chosen, painted, loved and cherished.
With another week of school holidays coming and Mothers' Day just around the corner, we now have the means, the motive and the opportunity for plenty of fun in the East End Gallery. For all the family!
Ready for business...
with serious contemplation...
taking pride in their art...
and rather pleased with their finished results.
Next, please!
Another satisfied customer...
with his mild-mannered sister...
before changing into his secret identity.
The lead artist in recovery mode...
and the aftermath of the "Aspiring Artists"table.
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