On Monday 2nd December Archie’s Daddy kindly invited the Pre-school to visit his workshop so we could see how he makes his beautiful Wychwood trees and other sculptures.
Archie very proudly led the way through the village to the workshop on Crown Farm. Once there, after Archie had had a big cuddle from his dad, we watched Chris demonstrate how he formed the branches of trees and how he makes the metal clean and shiny. The children also very excitedly stood behind a transparent screen and watched him solder metal seed pods onto their stems, this was very exciting as there was lots of sparks and noise and Chris had to dress up in his ear muffs and face visor.
We learnt a lovely new word, “quench,” which is what you do to cool down the hot metal by putting it in a bucket of cold water where it makes a fantastic sizzling noise.
Chris then very bravely gave us a tour of the showroom, where we had the chance to look at his amazing work and also the work of lots of local crafts people and artists. Then, even more bravely, he let us have our hot chocolate and biscuits and a good old sing song sitting on the showroom carpet! We finally set off back to pre-school, munching on the gift of a Christmas chocolate!
Thank you very much for a lovely morning Chris, a very good time was had by all!