Plein-eire

Last Sunday Benny and I went for a walk in the woods. He very proudly picked up a whole bucket of litter and we were just heading home to deposit it in the bin when we came across a group of artists just arriving and setting up their equipment to paint. 

When we got home we told Rebe about them and she wanted to visit them straight away to see what they were doing. So I took her down and she ran off chatting to everyone and looking at them work. 

We had a lovely conversation with a couple of the artists who told us more about their group. They meet monthly at a different location in the south west of Ireland. They have a coffee and set up, spend the day painting and then end the day in the local pub. We were so taken by them and they with us that they invited us to go home and get our paints and join them...and this we did...

 I realised that the kids hadn't done any painting outside away from home. It was really lovely and they actually painted for quite a while (rather than the 3 nano-seconds they usually take before declaring themselves finished and walking off leaving me to clear up the mess).

 It was also interesting because I also realised that the kids have never drawn or painted anything that is 'in front of them'. Usually they paint from imagination or just swirl the colours around. Benny even painted a butter-nut cup (as he calls them) in his painting before getting a bit carried away...

 Rebe's woods in the sunset

 Rebe then abandoned her paint brush to find her own things to paint with like this stick...

 as I could only find 2 paintbrushes in the whole house (?!?! what happened to them all...they've gone with the pens!) I couldn't join in the painting so I brought my knitting instead.

 It was such a beautiful experience and I am so grateful to the plein-eire group for welcoming my children into their fold and encouraging them so gently and kindly (and not minding when they robbed their last 2 cakes).

If you would like to see more pictures of the day you can see the group's video of the experience here (we start appearing about 4.40 mins into it, but it's so beautiful do watch the whole thing).