Fish, birds and fighter planes landed on the Chess Square at the Nageswara Rao Park in Mylapore on Saturday, the 27th of June. But all were made of paper and by children.
A new programme ‘Weekend at the Park’ was launched on that day by Sundaram Finance. This company has been conducting an early morning mike-less kutcheri in the same place at this park every month. Expanding this concept they have introduced this new ‘Weekend at the Park’ program.
The main objective is to use the natural, free space available at the park. This series of events will include workshops on painting, crafting, and many more, say the organisers.
The first in the series was an origami workshop for children aged 8 to 12 years. The instructors were Agasthi and Victoria, professional artists, who educate children on arts and crafts. They have been into origami for10 years.
They started the program by introducing the art of origami and telling how it originated. First the children were divided into 2 groups. The first model that we made was that of a fish. While the children were busy folding, the instructors told a short story about a fish which wanted to know what an ocean was, and at last found the answer. Then the children were asked to colour their fishes using their imagination, which they did very enthusiastically. The parents too were very enthusiastic and sat as near as possible to learn the techniques.
The next model was that of a bird. Both the groups did different types of birds. Most of them coloured theirs green so as to show that it was a parrot.
As time was running out, the last model was made in a minute. It was a model of a fighter plane. The children started flying their planes as soon as they were ready.
All participants were given gifts and a sheet of paper containing facts about this great art of origami.