I was asked one day to help the Girls' Brigade from Nanyang Primary School to design a banner for their drill competition I was a little apprehensive. I never designed a banner before. Thanks Juliet for the wonderful experience!!!
When I stepped into the classroom on the Saturday morning on 7th March 2009, I was shocked to see some 30 little blue uniformed girls sitting patiently waiting for my arrival. All of them were waiting for my instructions. I didn't know where or how to begin. I thought they had some ideas and all I need to do was to give some comments and make some modifications on something that was partially done, etc...
Laid on the ground was a very large blank cloth to be turned into a banner. Sitting on the chairs were little kids waiting for further instructions. Walking around were teachers wondering when I would arrive. I turned up 15 minutes late you see...
Anyway to cut the story short, I found a working visualizer and got some children who are good in drawing to draw what they think would be appropriate for the banner. So they drew on a piece of A4 paper which I gave them.
After collecting their drawings, the next step was to select both the better drawings and those that represents the theme well. And I proceeded to 'copy' and compiled their individual drawings on a seperate piece of paper under the nose of the visualizer.
The kids could see their own drawings reproduced stroke for stroke on the projector screen. You should look at their faces when they see that happening real time... hehe...
Next was the challenging stage. I had to reproduce what was drawn on paper onto the large black cloth on the ground with chalk. I had not much of a choice cause it seemed that I might the only person most suited for this job. Got down my knees I sketched the outlines and some borad details leaving the minor details for the children to fill them in.
Then come the coloring stage. The children did some of the coloring on that Saturday morning and completed the rest ALL on their own during the March holiday. I did nothing.
Today I got a picture message from Juliet showing the end product. I was thrilled to see what wonderful job they had done.
It was the children's work because the drawings were their own drawings as each of the character represents the person who drew it, the coloring were done collectively by them.
I merely transfered and enlarged their ideas on a piece of cloth.
What an experience...
