Session 26 - The Infectious Thrill That is Hapa Zome!

I love flowers, I love leaves, I love weeds, but for a while now I have been habouring secret desire to whack them with a big hammer! Ever since I saw a piece about the Japanese art of leaf dyeing on Lily's blog (see link at bottom of page), I have been itching to have a go.

So this week, armed with some old curtain linings kindly donated by a member of staff and every blunt instrument I could round up, I introduced the group to the joys of leaf bashing. I had snuck out earlier that morning to have a test run and was ridiculously happy with the results.We began our session with a quick game of seconds away hide and seek, before launching in to the main event. The only rule was 'don't pick anything that there are only a few of.' I showed the children the equipment and left them to experiment. We had a range of hammers, some with small metal heads and some with large rubber heads. We also had wooden mallets and some rocks. The children soon realised that the different implements produced different effects. NK said, "look the small metal hammer makes circle patterns." They also began to notice that the texture and intensity of the colours was altered by the surface onto which the fabric was placed. SL commented "you can see the rings in the log," when he used one of our log stepping stones to rest his fabric on. AK discovered that he could fold his fabric over several times and get multiple copies of his print. We found that some plants and flowers produced better results than others. Our top selections included dandelions, buddliea, clover, red robin leaves and pansies. Hawthorn flower buds produced a rather unattractive brown smudge.

Some other children who were working outside drifted over to investigate. They began by asking how were 'painting' with the plants. JA explained that the dye from the plants came out and stained the fabric when we hit it. It wasn't long before our group had doubled in size as children eagerly sought out things to bash.
As each new child joined the group, a previous 'joiner' explained the process. Popular plant choices and designs whipped through the group like a chain reaction. One of our new recruits picked up one of our wildflower books and said to me pointing to a picture of a daisy "Look Miss, I have seen some of these flowers on the field over there."
Then one child asked if they could turn their design into a flag. Before we knew it, we were surrounded by fluttering floral flags.
As the session drew to a close we decided to use some of the flags to play a game of capture the flag. I nearly managed to claim the flag for my team, but was tagged by SL just before I made it (gasping heavily!!) back to base.

http://kindlingplayandtraining.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/hapa-zome-beating-up-leaves-with.html