We conducted two quilling classes on the 2nd day of 2012, one for kids and the other for adults. What an exciting way to start the year! And this time round, we had more boys than girls! Who says quilling is just for girls? Everyone can quill!
Our first class for children --> 'Fun quilling class'. As the name indicates, it's a fun class. The aim here is to have children enjoy and fall for quilling, so we don't really emphasize on the outcomes. There's supposed to be another boy but too bad he couldn't make it. Anyhow he had paid full fee, so there's certainly going to be another fun quilling class in the near future.
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| Our first three kids students and they are actually siblings. Their mum is among our first adult quilling class students in 2011. |
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| The youngest sister working with her paper strips. |
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| The brothers working on a tendril. |
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| The eldest was keen to show me his spiral. |
It's a totally different experience for me teaching kids how to quill. You need greater patience when working with kids. And you'll need to be prepared with direct questions and frank answers. Among questions that I got include 'Teacher, how old are you?'. When I replied 'I'm an ancient being', they asked back 'how come you don't have grey hair?' I also told them that with their 'magic wands', they can do a lot of things and one kid answered 'this is a quilling tool, not a wand lah!'. Hahaha!
Sometimes, showing them how to do something is a lot easier than describing to them. And you'll also need to know how to interact with them, speaking their language, and look at things from their point of view. They don't always follow what you say. They have their own thoughts and ideas. So it's important to let them try with their hands, and learn from mistakes. But kids are really amazing little creatures! Well, at least with these 3 students that I had. They are expressive, fast in learning and most importantly you'll always be surprised at their creativity and imagination.
After learning how to quill the 'donuts' (@basic coils) and also pinching them into shapes, we tried to do some simple assembles. No pattern were given. They were only told about the shapes to use. So basically it's their own say on the colours, size and designs.
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| The eldest with his quilling. He is more adventurous and daring. Like to do things his way. He was doing his coils in the middle of the class and suddenly he popped up 'this slotted tool is really very important and useful!'. I think this is an important findings by him because he realised this from his own experience. His favourite is the tight coil. |
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| The youngest of the siblings but speaks pretty much like an adult. Have a good sense of colours, very organised. The colours she used are bright, indicating that she's very happy. I love her ice-cream and flowers. She said her ice-cream had started to melt, and she asked if she could use 5 different colours for the flower petals, something unexpected and surprised me. |
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| This is quilling by the second younger brother. He insisted not to show his face in the photo so we respected his choice. Actually he masters the coils faster than any of the siblings but I think he could go with more confidence and encouragements and attentions. His has his own style, his quills are thinner and slender in style. I love his green heart and black and white cat. Very unconventional. |
If kids class was a lot of fun and noise and laughters, then the adult beginner class was a lot more serious.The students are quieter, very focused and of course produced better quality quills.
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| Lecturing on how to produce coils |
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| So focused in quilling |
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| The basics |
