I spend about three days a week on Muddy zipping around trying stuff out, but I still rely heavily on suggestions from Muddy readers, chatting to people I meet out and about, and friends’ tips to hear about new places or things to try. (So don’t be shy, let me know if you think there’s somewhere I should check out!)

It was a friend whose own children regularly attended Little Masters, an art class for kids 6+ in mid Oxfordshire who told me about this fab little company. While I do think my middle child has some artistic talent (discount the ones on either side of her, they’re hopeless!) the initial reason I thought it sounded really great was because I needed to work on the run up to Christmas and Little Masters was running a holiday course that could take my smallest two midgets off my hands for the day at prices that made me feel like Christmas really had come early – a whole day (10am – 4.30pm) of crafting, sticking, painting and creating for £25 per child. I mean, come on, that’s a gift from the gods!  And there’s even the option for early bird drop off. *THUD*. Sorry, did you just hit the floor?

Sooooo, the Muddy kids were duly booted into The Pine Lodge in Little Milton (above) for the day, with a whole load of other kids of various shapes, sizes and ages, and came out six hours later armed with a whole load of paintings, trinkets, mosaics and, oh well, who cares what else? They came out having given me six hours to myself. Whoopee!

 

The kids both loved the course, but clearly the emphasis on a day like this is about fun and creativity rather than developing artistically. That’s saved for the weekly, smaller classes that Little Masters run in the local area.

Gerri, who owns the company, has been a professional artist for 25 years specialising in sculpture, having worked within film and TV on pop videos for Robbie Williams, films such as The Borrowers and most recently that tiny-budget indie pic Harry Potter. These days she teaches gifted and talented kids in schools, as well as running Little Masters to improve children’s skills with an art programme not currently taught within the present primary school curriculum.

I’m keen to get my middle child doing regular lessons, but the poor lamb does quite a bit after school already and I’m loathe to turn into a Tiger Mum, flagellating her with lessons every night. So it will have to wait until she tires of doing Mandarin or one of her four instruments (JOKE!!! She only does the three). But if you have a child whose talent needs nurturing, or who just loves art – just as valuable in my book – Little Masters could be the perfect answer.

At the moment the classes run in mid Oxfordshire – villages like Chalgrove, Ickford, Little Milton, Marsh Baldon, Benson, Abingdon etc (see the full list here) but on the website it does suggest that if you want a class in your area to get in touch, so give it a go.

littlemasters.co.uk