When I made my list of wooden objects I was struck my how many kinds of paper I had listed. When gathering supplies for this project many weeks ago, I was hoping that I could get the children to experiment with different kinds of paper. So there was blotting paper in the pack. I played with making ink marks on blotting paper and using water, scissors and fingers to mould it into a leaf shape. One of the illustrations we had looked at in previous weeks was a pen and wash work by Quentin Blake. We looked at this and experimented with mark-making using twigs dipped in ink and the using brushed washes.

The children finished these pieces in the afternoon while they were still damp enough to shape. This whiteboard took shape the following week just before the session. The sound was still turned off but I could sense some excitement and see the work going on with children holding sheets of white paper behind their leaves and getting a friend to take the photo. Suddenly these incredibly beautiful images started to appear in rapid succession. Silent, miraculous feedback from the previous week’s activities. For me, this kind of spontaneous exchange is the Virtually There project at its very best.