YOF08: Scratch Art

SHOWNOTES (+PICS) https://wp.me/p5bc9S-2gG   Nearly two months into the Year of Fun and as far as I'm concerned, this has definitely made what are normally pretty hellish months... actually quite fun. This week's Fun activity was a callback to my childhood: Scratch Art. I didn't have a name for this as a kiddo, but I do remember the confusion of seeing my older sister cover her square of paper, which she had beautifully coated in rainbow crayons, with a thick, oily black layer, hiding all her good colourful work. What sacrilege! Then... I remember my delight as she took an empty ballpoint pen and scratched on the slick black surface... to reveal... lines of rainbow! Ahhh. A magic moment I then committed to recreating as often as possible. Still to this day, I love the aesthetic contrast of all the rainbow colours next to a complete absence of colour. It's the same reason I prefer multicoloured lights on a Christmas tree. Why have one when you can have the lot? Anyway, this week I made time to do a slightly more grown up version of my childhood obsession of scratch art. If you're not familiar with this wondrous art form, it's simply a matter of covering a sheet of paper with lots of colours - using crayons or oil pastels. Then, covering over all your work with black - either oil pastel or paint works too. Finally, you draw/scratch onto the black surface to reveal lines of your colours underneath. The result is... quite lovely. One mistake I made was getting a bit too enthusiastic with the black paint. When I was a kid, we just used a very heavy duty black oil pastel, but since I had a lot of ground to cover, I opted for black acrylic paint. I just laid it on way too thick so the initial marks I made kind of just moved paint around. That said, the simple action of moving the paint around and revealing the rainbow underneath was really quite magical. Fun rating? 6/10 A little lower because lets face it: the element of challenge wasn't exactly there, but I did enjoy the lighthearted, tactile experience. If I have anything significant to say to you this week it's: what activity did you enjoy as a child? One that created that sense of wonder we lose in our teens? Is this something you could recreate today, just for old times sake?     Next week's fun activity is... The orchestra!