The children are ready to add skin tone to their masks. We talked a bit about how skin colours over time through exposure to wind and sun and that they should think about what their future self might have experience -whether they would be out in the elements or travelling the world or spending a lot of time indoors. Again we looked at examples for inspiration, revelling in the individuality of age spots, joined up freckles, prominent veins or dark circles -how all of these things make the face so much more distinctive. We looked at how the experience of life can show through the face. Years ago in Virtually There we did some portrait work with a class and spent a whole day thinking about how to mix a skin colour. The children in this class have been getting some great skin tones from very early on with only a little direction on how to mix colours. I think that watercolour is great in getting children into colour mixing because such little amount of paint makes such a difference on the page and that sensitises the children when they are using more opaque pigment. I was prepared to spend as long as necessary in thinking about the colours but, again, the children themselves seem to know what to do. They were really thorough in applying colour and were able to mix plenty of colour to allow more than one coat -very impressive and again, lots of really thoughtful variations in skin-tone. Everyone’s mask is, once again, vibrantly individual. At the end of the session we had a think about what their characters might wear and I invited the children if possible, to bring in elements of costume for the following week.