This week, Class 5 have been busy making willow sculptures in DT/ art. We began the process by dampening the thin willow sticks without bark. We soaked the sticks in warm water overnight and in the morning we mellowed them (put them in wet towels). Once the fibres in the willow were wet, we could stretch and bend the fragile sticks. If we didn't soak them, they would snap easily and bend. We planned our chosen underwater willow animal by drawing it. We created the outline out of willow and secured the separate pieces with masking tape. Once we were happy with the outline,  we moved on to reinforcing the skeleton with circles of willow. This bit was tricky as the willow was wet and repelled the tape. The sticking of the special tissue paper came next and was even more tricky! We used 50:50 water and PVA mix to fix the paper to our structures—it was very fiddly! The pain was worth it, though! Once it had dried it was strong and translucent and kept the main willow structure together, as it shrunk when the water in the glue evaporated. It was more sturdy and looked better with the special tissue paper on. If you did a jellyfish, you had to add specially made tentacles made of scraps of tissue paper on to the bottom of the sculpture. As Elsie G said, “The tentacles were the easiest part of my jellyfish as I only had to twist them and stick them on”.                     by Elsie S