Following Craignish Primary School’s epic PLASTIC SEA arts event I ran a similar floor-show surprise using their plastic rubbish finds collected in March on their annual Beach Clean. Working with another enthusiastic primary school of 35 game and inventive children, Kilninver, Argyll. Again the children didn’t know what to expect…  we sorted out the washed up plastic finds in to colours on white to explore what shapes and textures had been collected… always amazing to see how much plastic colour is chucked in our oceans, see how different it looks when washed and cleaned! Great energy and play…

We made 3d fishes, no glue, scissors or nails… A playful way to introduce this scruffy material and to loosen up the imagination: looking for once thrown away plastic bits which would be perfect to make an eye, fin, funny fish mouth… It is fun, and funny what each child makes… x35 creative individual responses to sea creatures! It always makes me laugh to see what you can see, it’s always a unique creation, it’s entirely about how you see…

And then… using bottle tops and bits from my collections to make corals and fishes we painted x35 plastic Dutch tomato boxes to make aquariums and underwater scenes. Funny working small after working so big…The children were brilliant at clearing up! Putting every plastic bit in to colour coded boxes! Ready for making… Birds! Without driftwood collected and dried I provided offcuts from a house-build, to use as bird bodies to nail and glue the floor-show plastics on to… The school had done a lot of research in to drawing birds which helped… they knew about Sea Eagle eyes or Oyster Catcher beaks… funny and fabulous creations!