Children’s Nature Art in Bantry House gardens

Plan a family afternoon out ‘near to nature’ in the gardens of Bantry House. Book your 6 to 12 years olds into free nature arts sessions with two artists / arts facilitators. As a family, follow a Tree Trail, go on a Moss Hunt, and maybe reward yourselves with something from the tea rooms.

Shia Tremayne leads two contrasting activities. Flowers and leaves are selected and arranged onto pieces of cloth, covered, and bashed with a stone. Noisy, satisfying, requiring some skill and care, and usually providing surprisingly colourful and detailed results. This has been the Festival’s signature children’s nature art activity over the last seven years. The Tree ID disks use quieter observational and drawing skills and can produce a game to take home.

Featuring a wonderful range of leaves, the activities led by Sue van Coppenhagen, explore the properties of wax, water and paint. For younger children, leaves are placed under paper and rubbed with crayon to reveal their shapes and vein patterns, or they are dipped in paint and printed, and other great activities that encourage the participants (and parents / accompanying adults in the background) to look more closely at leaves and their features. For older children there may be sponging, spraying, leaf printing and watercolour flow.

Each artist is running three half hour sessions.
Flowers and leaf pounding and Tree ID disks sessions with Shia start at 2pm. 2:40pm and 3:20pm for the full age range, 6 to 12 years.

Creative Adventures with Leaves and Paint with Sue has sessions starting at 2pm and 2:40pm for the younger children 6 to 8 years, and a longer session (40 minutes) starting at 3:20pm for the older children 8 to 12 years.

There are ten places in each session, and each artist works with an assistant, so good attention can be given to all the children.

The sessions are free, but places must be booked. Booking opens 21st July.
Eventbrite link: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/nature-art-2358959

The sessions are held outside under shelters to protect from sun or rain and toilets are available nearby.

Access to Bantry House Gardens is free on the day, the tea rooms are open, and there is a self-guided Tree Trail leaflet specifically for the Gardens available there that you can do before or after the timed sessions. You can also use the self-guided Moss Hunt and native Twelve Tree Trail on a phone or download and printed off beforehand, available here. https://ellenhutchins.com/for-kids/

This event is a free Ellen Hutchins Festival event and has sponsorship from Bantry Credit Union.

The Ellen Hutchins Festival is taking place 17th-25th August - full details of all the events here: https://ellenhutchins.com/event-listings-2/

Eventbrite link to book: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/nature-art-2358959