Monday 23rd October 06:00

The morning rush hour is about to descend on the Holland-Hicken household, where chaos reins for a short while...

..except today it will be for a little longer! Half term for my daughter...

I will try to get a little painting done when the light comes up (thank heavens for CBB's!) but more than likely I'll be stopping around lunch time today.

However I have a special painting project that I'm working on that requires quite a bit of computer work - thanks to the new "wireless" we've installed I might be able to work on the project and be with my daughter at the same time!

A little about the project...

..I have planned a special painting. It's not unique by any standards and the style has been used a zillion times before - but the execution and number of artists involved is! I've put together a painting of the "Mona Lisa" comprised of just over 2000 "pixels" or 1" squares on a canvas. On the 7th of November (by coincidence my daughter's birthday) I will be taking this canvas to my daughter's school...

(there should be a picture or two here - but I can't seem to upload today!)

..that, a hand full of brushes and 10 pots of pre mixed acrylic paints.

The plan is that during the course of one day all the children, staff, governors, dinner ladies, caretakers and even the school mascot "Teddy Robinson" will all file into the community room to paint 10 or so of the squares - at the same time my assistant and I will be hiding (with a second) canvas the previously painted squares...

..at the end of the day we should have a pretty good rendering of "Mona". I'll take it home tat night - tidy up the finger prints and spills and then it will be unveiled the following morning in a full school assembly - the theme of the assembly will be "Working together, look what we can achieve...etc"

We'll then have it photographed and a small mounted print will be made for the school to sell in the lead up to Christmas - the school does a lot of this sort of thing and has bought some fantastic kit for the kids - for instance my daughter who is just turning 5 uses a 60" projector lit touch screen to guide "virtual" characters through "counting rooms", "writing rooms" and all manner of other hi-tech learning...

..enough of that - I'll keep you informed!

Have fun - rush hour beckons...