Leaving our mark ...

It is a tradition that a visiting AidCamps team leaves their mark on a project by creating a signature board and other art work. Emily relates what we decided to do ...

After spending such a long time working at the centre, we all thought it would be nice to leave a little something behind. With so many artists in our group, such as the senior artist Nick Bedborough, and a few other GCSE art students, we thought it'd be an excellent idea to leave our mark behind in the form of a collection of artwork on boards.

 

When we were first given the boards, they had to be preserved and white washed. The photo above shows Mrs Clarke's group starting off the preserving of the boards. It may not look like it, but in reality more of the paint went on the grass than on the boards!

James and our Sri Lankan friend Thivanka painted the back of one of the boards black, as this is the main board that we were designing, along with some of the teachers at the centre.

The GCSE art students also designed and painted the "millennium goals". These are to achieve universal primary education, the empowerment of women, eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, to promote gender equality, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/Aids/Malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability and to promote global partnership for development.

Thivanka and Dili also helped us with the painting of the smaller boards with the goals on them.

First, the artists found photos of the goals, and sketched them onto the whitewashed boards. Using fine paintbrushes, they began to paint the smaller, more intricate details into the boards.

After a lot of paint mixing to find the right colours, we painted the boards in bright, eye catching colours so that they could be easily seen around the centre.

Along with these boards, we also decided to leave behind two boards with our names on them - another mark of the work and fundraising we've done for this project.

Last year, the students who travelled to Sri Lanka decided that their board would be made up of handprints in the shape of peacock feathers, and they would each have a handprint with their name on it.

This year, we had to make 2 boards, as we helped to complete both the second and the third floor of the centre.

We decided that our boards would both be trees, and so Ella, James Paus, Mrs Clarke, Faye and I all drew and painted the trunks, leaves and branches of the trees.

Mrs Clarke came up with the idea of adding little birds onto each of the trees. They are small blackbirds, and have yellow eyes. Any name suggestions?

This is what one of the boards looked like after the first stage of painting..

The day after painting all of the boards, we headed to the site.

Here, you can see all of the boards perched against the side of our trusty bus. With all 32 of us, including pupils, teachers and a few extras, it was quite a job to get them on!

Here's Freddie, admiring the artwork whilst wearing odd flip-flops. He's probably trying to be artistic.

Here we all are, at the site..

When we got there, there was still more work to do on the boards.

The "fine arts" group, consisting of Mrs Clarke, Ella Neil, Becky Machin, Ellie Patrick and I all had the task of copying the "Serve", "AidCamps International" and Rookwood School logos onto the boards. Trust me when I say, it's harder than it looks!

Mr Pool helped, which makes a change after leaving all of the rest of his group to do all the whitewashing! Don't worry, we covered him in paint anyway.

Becky also helped some of the teachers from the centre to finish their board, which features all of the things which Serve strive to achieve in their work.

All in all, it was quite a relaxing day. Two groups of us were painting; one group painting the boards, and the other painting the walls of the building. One group was also doing all of the hard graft, of sandsifting and carrying the tiles up the stairs to the top floor.

The fact that the centre is almost finished is incredible, and on this, our last day working on the site, we all gave 100% to make sure that the centre was as good as it possibly could be.

You'll be able to see how all of the boards and displays look finished at the opening ceremony!

I'd just like to leave a little message for my parents..

Hi Mum and Dad. Hope everything is ok at home? Hope the Presidents' Day tea went well, and I'm sorry I couldn't be there. Say hello to Coco for me? I really hope he didn't go and sneeze that kennel cough vaccine into the vet's face like last time - not good! Please don't give me curry when I get back, I beg you! We've all had enough curry here to last us a life time! I miss you and love you all a lot, and can't wait to see you on Sunday! Xxx :)

 

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