The Hatching, 3, on a day of snow and ice

Thursday 29th January 2014 was a day of blowing snow, icy roads, schools closing and cars sliding, but our Trout Schools were open, their Trout were hatching and our Trout-artists and River-musicians were as enthusiastic as we could ever ask for

somewhere, there are 100 fry in here!

Steve Brown and myself visited Springfield  and Worsthorne Primary Schools in this second day of creative input into the latest trout hatching with the Ribble Rivers Trust

Steve and an artist in discussion

They were such busy workshops, I didn't take as many photos as sometimes so will pool the results here

2 folds of a river pop-up: finished ones might have 30 folds!

In both schools, the visual arts/story side of things this day was to make folded rivers: concertina pop-ups that when finished could run right across a classroom.

starting with a river and fish in photos

creating water patterns

Folded Rivers grow slowly, taking time for ideas to unfold like the card and to flow like the water. As an artist I'm always excited by the complete unpredictability of the process and the sudden flashes of inspiration that set people darting off after new ideas

the river runs over front and back of a card

the wonderful red rocks of the River Brun
(no, we'd not met them before either, with fry hiding in the gravel)

Worsthorne's "The Source To The Sea"

Initial design and half finished pop-up with a big trout - some fisher's "one that always got away"

almost finished

Just as artwork is controlled by our young artists, so collective song-writing comes from them, with ideas being thrown in from all sides and songs growing as fast as a trout can swim

"Hey Trout", the Springfield song