Oh good…Derf was reviving and sitting up. And Professor Myers was moving them on, no matter how ruffled the man appeared to be giving what had happened. Cassie had actually forgotten the question and the possibilities in the answer until the professor spoke on the subject once more, loosely explaining the Hunger Games books to those unfamiliar with the Muggle series, or those who had forgotten perhaps. Something else to focus on than fainting people.

As for the posed question, her first thought had actually been to use the berries as a lure to something more substantial for food but Myers had mention for ideas to be more…fun. Besides Jessa her younger housemate had already followed that thought. “Dying our clothes perhaps…” Cass offered as another idea that came to mind. Clothes had specifically been brought up in the talk of the activity after all so it had potential.

Patrick thought about all of the different things you could do with berries. Well a couple of his classmates had already said to dye their clothing. He figured you could make some sort of food out of different kinds of berries. He thought for a second longer, ”Oh, well could you make medicinal pastes or creams out of the berries?” He questioned thinking that his mother or father once had mentioned that there were specific items in nature that would help you live better.

Now that she was sure Derf was alive, Zoryn went back to sort of paying attention to the lesson again. The next question that was asked of the class was TOTALLY stupid, at least Zoryn thought so. And Zoryn almost even rolled her eyes at the answer about finger painting. No offense, but that'd be a really dumb waste of a lesson (which is exactly why Professor Myers would probably do it).

She raised her hand after a while, "could use 'em to poison your enemies." It was survival AND leisure. 'Cause in Zoryn's most humble opinion, there was nothing better than destroying her enemies, especially if that enemy was one Paulette Myers. But, like, no offense or anything.

Actually, all the offense.

Derf simply nodded his head as Professor Myers addressed him before mumbling a quick, "I'm okay," and finally taking a sheepish look around at all the eyes looking at him. To Scarlett the third year shook his head quickly because, no, he did not need nor want to go to the hospital wing just to have Healer Reed tell him for the whatever time that he needed to 'get over' whatever was plaguing his fragile Hufflepuff soul.

And right now? He just wanted to get away from the group a little bit more...maybe off to the side with Natalie who was always close by and he appreciated it and who he took shook his head at about the hospital wing. "No hospital wing," he mumbled, using one of his hands to ruffle his hair. His attention was then briefly brought to Isa. "Yeah, I'm alright," he nodded, giving Natalie's hand a tug to move with him a little more away from people and off to the peripherals of things.

As for the question about berries...Derf could only think about eating them right now...or using them as food for creatures. But his mind was far too scrambled at the moment for any sort of proper speech outside of the reassurance of his being a-okay and thus remained quiet.

Leisure? What could berries be used for with leisure? Well, there was something that Kyle could think of. But was it okay for a boy to say it? He took a deep breath, and blushed a little. "Makeup, professor," he said quickly. "Girls, and boys too I guess, could use berries and stuff for makeup."

Leisure? Frankly, all Etta could think of was to eat them but she was pretty sure that wasn’t the response the professor was looking for. She remained quiet for a while, absently flicking through the pages of her textbook and trying to come up with something a little more creative.

“Maybe we could use them to make juice?” Etta wasn’t sure if someone had suggested this already but it was all she could think of. The prefect waited for class to move on, wondering what they were going to learn today. Something interesting, she hoped.

Lost?

No he wasn't lost at all. He was bored, that's what he would say at least. He watched all the stuff going on and couldn't help but roll his eyes at the drama of some of it. Derf seemed like a cool guy most of the time, but dude needed to chill a little bit.

The responses to the questions all seemed to be going well, so why did he have to answer as well? He'd be good just pretending to listen and work on whatever was given. He still didn't understand why all this muggle stuff was so important. Who cared about some hunger games, unless the muggle version was less humane, then it might make it cooler.

Viv was very worried about Zerf. She was lucky that he didn't need CPR!! She cared a lot about her classmates. Like really... Nightlock?? Isn't that poison?? She had read about them in the Hunger Games trilogy. "Nightlock can be found in the form of berries or a pill form that will instantly kill you."

…..Right. “Ha. No, Ronan. Just… no.” And that was all Paul would say on the matter!


Jam. HA! Paul smiled at her. “Well...that’d be yummy. Perhaps I’ll teach you all how to make jam soon. As a FUN lesson.” Not that his lessons were ever NOT fun.

….Again, riiiiiiight. “A food fight would be….an interesting way to enjoy surviving in the forest on your own, sure!”

Paul chuckled to himself. He wasn’t making fun of the answer; he genuinely thought it was funny!

He was fascinated that Jessa hadn’t said anything about eating said trapped animals. Huh. She was so interesting a child, was she aware? “That’s exactly the answer I would expect from you, Miss Cambridge,” he winked at her.

“Well, sure. That’d make your outdoors home prettier--some decor. Ha HA! Fun idea, m’dear!” he clapped in her direction.

Paul merely smiled in Steph’s direction, trying to encourage to speak up more, if she wanted to, of course. There wasn’t an issue with silence as long as they were paying attention, and she certainly seemed to be.

Natalie seemed to be Derfael’s caretaker, which was fine, of course, but Paul did wonder if her worry was warranted. Derf seemed fine now that he was back to himself. And he hoped she wasn’t missing too much -- until he remembered that this lesson was preeeeeeeeeetty much just a blowaway lesson anyway.

“Using berries for marbles? You should try that out one day and tell me how it goes, m’boy,” he laughed a little in Tenacius’ direction. Salander always thought outside the box.

TEEAAAA! Paul smiled. “Fabulous idea. I’ve been wanting to do a lesson on tea for a few terms now, but I need the right curriculum to fit it into!”

BERRY JEWELRY? PAUL LOVED THIS. LESSON IDEAS GALORE TODAY, APPARENTLY. He grinned. “I like the way you think, Juniper.” Plus all these creative ideas were definitely on the right PATH.

Similar to what Tenacius said….Paul smiled. “You and Tenacius start a club--an edible game club--” and then...he remembered Henry was graduating, and his face fell, slightly.

NooooOOOOoo! Not his PREFECT. His HEAD BOY. He could CRY right here and right NOW. He wouldn’t, but he could. He cleared his throat and blinked a lot.

DYING CLOTHES WAS ANOTHER BRILLIANT IDEA. ALL THE FUN FOOD IDEAS FOR PRACRICAL NON-EDIBLE USE. “Heh. I like that, Cassie!”

……………………………………….

“Zoryn Spinnet.” Paul’s smile had faded, slightly, and he eyed her sternly. “If I thought you were being legitimate -- and that’d be another problem altogether, let’s face it -- I wouldn’t mind that much. But you’re not taking my class seriously. Now, nor have you ever.” He breaaaaathed. He wanted to tell her to leave. But then, he wondered about his bias. He was irritated with her. He felt cross with her, and he didn’t want that to cloud his vision. Soo….he let her stay. For now.

“I don’t think I would find that activity very leisurely.”

He looked upon Derfael for another second before nodding. “Okay. I’ll check with you after class to see if you’re feeling all right. Okay?” he also wanted to..perhaps speak to his parents about things, not that he thought on it.

A letter was in order.

Paul was glad he tacked on that ‘and boys’ at the end, because yes, child, yes. “Makeup that you can eat? Lick off your lips? Sounds like fun,” he said with a smile.

JUICEEEEE! Paul grinned. “Well, that’s a form of eating...or rather, ingesting I suppose. But natural juices are delicious in a….natural way.” Duhhhhh.

Aaaaaaaand Eddie was quiet, as usual. Paul, again, hoped he was listening.

“Correct, m’dear!” he said, even though she hadn’t answered the question at hand, but what she said wasn’t wrong, and not entirely irrelevant, soooooo ????



As usual, Isa spewed out answers like a bloody textbook, and all Paul could do was smile in her direction. She and Hattie took the cake, though, for what the lesson would be about. Not the identifying part, but the making “inks” of sorts from it. And dye. Someone else had said it, too, so kudos to them all!

“Well, yes. We will be making NATURAL PAINTS from our planty friends. Mostly using berries..some other shades may come into play, though. I’ve got a color chart ALLLLL drawn up. I know we were focusing on night shade----which we were, but I wanted to...sort of have an excuse to do THIS lesson. In the book where nightlock makes an appearance...they would have to paint using these techniques.” Like, he knew this was stretching. But Paul Myers, in this moment, did not care.

“SOOOO your first task to forage for these berries that you may want to use for your paints. CHERRIES. RASPBERRIES. BLACK BERRIES. NIGHT LOCK. MULBERRIES.” He grinned. “I will put my color guide on the board so you know what berries you want to forage for in order to create the shades you want. I also have some buckets of----” And Paul waved his wand, the buckets became NOT invisible. They’d been out of the way, no worries there. “Flour, ginger, turmeric, paper, and some brushes. In the books, if we were in the WILD...we wouldn’t have brushes. But of course, we’ll use them today. Or you can use your fingers.” He grinned. “I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re going to use nightshade, but yeah. You will be able to mix any of these shades as well to create NEW shades. Turmeric and ginger will add some different depths to your colors!” he wiggled his fingers playfully. He took the color chart from his pocket and unfolded it.

“While you all forage, I’ll be writing the directions on how to MAKE the paints. Yes? Yes! OKAY GO!”




OOC: So I have the directions, I just didn't want a colossal post. Start posting your character figuring out which berries they want to create colors with or just use on their own. There is no limit. Let your character do as they please. There are baskets to collect the berries in. I'll be posting the directions sometime later tonight/tomorrow morning and then you all have the rest of the time to mix the paint and CREATE SOMETHING COOL. Well, your character. Lol. Play with each other...have conversations...wooh hooooooh! I had fun finding all the colors to match the shades xDD Obviously, the hex codes aren't a part of the IC list xD Just in case y'all wanted to know OOC wise.

Thanks, guys! I'm in the midst of finals, so if this lesson feels loosey- and a little more distant than usual, that is why! Forgive me! I love you all <3 Thanks for always entertaining me and making me feel sane after busy, stressful days. *hugs*

Okay for the record, her answer was TOTALLY serious. It was still kinda spurred by anger and mostly she wasn't in the mood to give fluffy answers just to try and please Professor Myers the way everyone else was trying to. But she was 100% certain that he was being TOTALLY unfair and COMPLETELY disregarding her participation. At least she was TRYING sort of. Honestly, Zoryn didn't know what she was meant to do here 'cause participating meant that she was gonna be a sour participant and then get in trouble. But not participating meant that the plant man was gonna hop on her back for not participating and she was still gonna get in trouble.

The only nice Professors at this school were Professor H and the Headmistress (I know, surprising). Plus all the other Professors hated her and took away points and got all mad and yelled and spoke real sternly. It made her hate those lessons and Professors even more. And Zoryn wanted to leave this class immediately.

Only she didn't think it was allowed, so instead... She just stood in place. Sorta, kinda, really upset and not really wanting to do the task at hand.

No making jam? Wait, they WERE going to be making paints??? Okay, Skylar Diggory was really confused, because what did painting a bloody picture have to do with anything when it came to survival? Also, she was definitely not artsy; she left the creative designs to Hattie, so of course, it was a glance to the best friend when Professor Myers said for them to get started on foraging for berries and figuring out what colors they wanted to use.

"Psst, Hattie? Wanna help me with my painting?" Also, could she mix nightshade and tumeric to make a green color?

Because she was totally collecting those two berries in basket right now.

Hattie's eyes practically lit up as she listened to Professor Myers. They were actually going to paint in class? That was like her dream come true. It was no secret that she was an artist. Paint ran through her veins more than blood did. So she was very excited for this task. She hadn't painted with berries before though, so that was going to be interesting. She had a feeling though that it wouldn't be a medium that she was going to be using any time soon though. But it was going to be fun to mix her own colours together. It was practically like she was doing her hobby in class time. Harriet was really in her element here.

She beamed as she headed over to Skylar after hearing the girl say her name. "Of course I can. Best lesson ever right?" The fifth year giggled with a beam. She looked into her friend's basket. "Ooh.... What colours are you going for?" She asked, before beginning top to put some cherries into her basket first.

Tenacius grinned at the Herbologist. He would totally try that out-- Gobstones: Berry edition. Heck even Henry's on the same mindset as he does, of which he gave a cheerful thumbsup at the Head Boy.

But now they be foraging for berries! That may sound simple but its actually quite exciting he thought-- mostly because most of the berries listed on the board are indeed edible. So basically this a time where they're sent to eat hehe.

Although Ace wasnt quite sold on the idea of painting with them berries, not yet anyway. Whats gotten him thinking is to make some nice pastries instead-- heck the Professor already provided the flour!

Oh goodddd... seee, this is why it paid to have a best friend who was into the artsy stuff. Grinning when Hattie came over toward her and agreed to help her, Skylar merely just shook her head at the Hufflepuff. "For you maybe," The brunette grinned. The foraging part was kind of fun though. "Uh, I was thinking I might blend some. The nightshade and the tumeric should make green, right?" See, she wasn't completely daft when it came to arts and craft and the colour wheel.

Oh, the raspberry shade might work well. Of course the image that Skylar had in mind would probably NOT turn out as well on paper, but a girl could hope? Deciding she needed some extra nightshade and tumeric to just do plain blue and plain yellow would be beneficial, Skylar decided, adding some more of those too...

OOOH this lesson took a fun turn! Now that they were going to do something creative, Scarlett was a bit more interested. All she had to do was making pretty paintings with berries? Well why didn't he LEAD with that?!

Which ones did she want to use? She was thinking of just going all crazy with different shades of pink, something abstract...and easy enough to make. So maybe she'd start with raspberries? They WERE her favorite berries, after all. So she headed towards the berries and began to look them over, picking a few handfuls of raspberries as her idea began to form in her brain.

Oh, a berry hunt. Paints. Arts and craft.

They had flesh eating plants; Venemous Tentacula's, snargaluffs, mandrakes and they'd.........be making paint. Merlin, Derf fainted for nothing. This wasn't even going to be that kind of lesson. To say she was disappointed would've been an understatement but the term was drawing to a close and the time for her to be mentally stimulated by the school's lessons had long since gone.

It was only about another topic or two before she started reaching for the 6th Year curriculum and even then, her focus was on the summer vacation that couldn't come any sooner. This was a non-issue by comparison so fine, she'd go looking for the berries.

The Ravenclaw spared a glance at the board, just to remind herself of the berries and colours before heading off into the little makeshift forest.

Blackberries, raspberries and cherries, shouldn't be too hard.

They were going to paint with the berries. Huh. She sketched regularly, but she was more of a pencil or quill and ink girl than any sort of paint. And she definitely hadn't ever used berry paint. But she wasn't going to complain, it was nice to have a fun, light-headed lesson after such a long term.

So, first to forage for some berries to colour her paints. Her usual subjects were comic-book style figures, and with the range of pinks on offer, a skin tone didn't seem to difficult to obtain. The mulberries and cherries were her first port of call after picking up a basket. Seeing some nightshade, she also added that to mix with the turmeric, thinking maybe she could do a portrait with the greenhouse as a backdrop. Question was...self portrait or someone else?

Painting with berries. Hmmmmm. Etta LOVED to draw and she did prefer sketching as compared to painting but she wasn’t bad at it, per se. She could manage, hopefully. She glanced at the board to memorise the berries and colours before getting up.

The girl headed over to pick a basket, wondering what she wanted to paint. She could paint someone, maybe. But first, the berries. The prefect quickly picked some cherries, dropping them into her basket before moving on to some turmeric. Heh, this lesson was actually quite funnnn. Different and rather exciting, heheh. What else?! Oooooh, raspberries.

Paul knew he would have some grumbling, but he didn't much mind. He was ready for summer break, and his lessons had progressively gotten more chill as they neared it. He NEEDED this break. He was...too tired for this term. He would suggest a lazy summer to Milton. No vacations...no beaches. Just...laze. LAZE.

But he would be okay. He began to write the instructions on the board with his wand.

Voillaaaa! Paul smiled and folded up the piece of paper he had written the directions on in his pocket. He thought he might make some paints.... some Night shade, some raspberries...he began to collect these, first, being very careful with the poisonous berry. He didn't need anything accident this term. Picking berries was always quite relaxing. He needed the sound of a waterfall or something nearby to keep his composure. He spotted Zoryn not looking too happy...and...sighed. Maybe he HAD been too stern. "Miss Spinnet...are you all right today, m'dear?" he asked gently. Not too soft or...affectionate, but Paul never wanted to purposely make a student feel bad. Unless they deserved it...which...he didn't think Zoryn did, today.




OOC: You guys have the rest of the time (two days) to finish this! use as many posts as you want! I'll be posting around. I know this is low-key. Purposely, lol. Paul isn't excited enough IC to have a really intense lesson (and I'm in the midst of finals wahoo) soooo yeah! Happy posting! <3

Patrick grabbed a basket and went to town grabbing berries. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to paint just yet, but he figured he would decide that once he got some berries picked up. He grabbed some of the blue ones, he tried to avoid the nightshade. He figured it might be a good idea to do a beach scene... unless he couldn’t get the colors right. Maybe he’d just do stick figures. He threw some more berries into his basket and looked around the room taking in what everyone else was doing.

Mmm painting with berries, Juni approved. Just a random thought forage was an interesting word. Anyway she looked at that the colors of the berries deciding which berries she was going to use. She was just going to do to a bit of everything.

Collecting some bowls she headed over to the berries to forage that. Hehehe That sounded like some great quest that they were on to forage the berries. . A handful of cherries. A handful of raspberries. A handful of blackberries. A handful of Nightlock And lastly a handful of mullberries.

Time to crush it!.....

"Exactly. It's the best lesson ever for me!" If she could paint in all of her lessons she would. There was a reason why all of her revision notes were so colorful. She was just that kind of person. But she understood that everyone was different, and that was why they couldn't have art based lessons all the time. "I think they will" She nodded with a smile. She hadn't used berries for paint before so she wasn't really sure how they would work, or blend together. But they could experiment and hopefully find the right colours!

Ooh. Now they had instructions to follow. That was good. "Okay. We need to collect the berries we want in different bowls" She smiled as she explained it to Sky. "So.. we need one of nightshade, turmeric, raspberries and cherries" Since those were the two colours that she was going to use for herself. The hufflepuff grabbed four bowls, and began to put the berries into the correct bowls.

Of course it was the best lesson for Hattie; Skylar wasn't surprised. Although the mashing berry part sounded exciting - release some of that bent up OWL stress, among other stresses of fifth year. And now there were instructions for the remainder of class for how to go about making the inks, which it seemed Hattie was already on top of it grabbing bowls for her too. "Thanks!" She grinned, taking two of them, passing the few raspberries she collected over as well. "Here, you can add these. I want a LITTLE raspberry color, i think." Oh wait, one more extra bowl for the blended color. The Slytherin went over to where the bowls were and took an extra one. Because she still wanted the yellow and nightshade by themselves.

Proceeding with the tumeric first, the fifteen year old used the base of her palm to mash it, pleasantly surprised with one, how easy it mashed. And two, how relaxing it felt. Only problem, she didn't want to contaminate the nightshade just yet, so how to clean her hands? Oh, towels? Fetching a towel, along with one for Hattie, she wiped her hands on it before proceeding to do the same thing with the nightshade.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sweetpinkpixie

Derf simply nodded his head as Professor Myers addressed him before mumbling a quick, "I'm okay," and finally taking a sheepish look around at all the eyes looking at him. To Scarlett the third year shook his head quickly because, no, he did not need nor want to go to the hospital wing just to have Healer Reed tell him for the whatever time that he needed to 'get over' whatever was plaguing his fragile Hufflepuff soul.

And right now? He just wanted to get away from the group a little bit more...maybe off to the side with Natalie who was always close by and he appreciated it and who he took shook his head at about the hospital wing. "No hospital wing," he mumbled, using one of his hands to ruffle his hair. His attention was then briefly brought to Isa. "Yeah, I'm alright," he nodded, giving Natalie's hand a tug to move with him a little more away from people and off to the peripherals of things.

As for the question about berries...Derf could only think about eating them right now...or using them as food for creatures. But his mind was far too scrambled at the moment for any sort of proper speech outside of the reassurance of his being a-okay and thus remained quiet.

Sensing that all the attention was unwelcome and unnerving, Natalie took Derf's hand and followed his tug off to the side where they were away from too many eyes. She nodded at him when he said that he was fine and then... tried to pay attention to the lesson.

She missed most of the first part of the lesson, but she did gather that they were supposed to be painting with berries. It didn't sound very educational, but Natalie probably wasn't in the right mind for a huge educational opportunity.

Painting, they could handle.

"Do you wanna gather the berries? I'll get the supplies." She looked at Derf and squeezed his hand to make sure he was okay and up for an activity. It was lighthearted and hopefully fun, so... After making sure he was good, Natalie went up to the front and grabbed brushes and paper and supplies so he could pick out what kind of berries to get.

She didn't bother to ask if these were in fact real berries for the mere fact some form of warning had been given/ Real or not, the poison berry at the very least had some potency to it. That being the case and though she didn't actually need it for her painting, Jessa slipped on her dragon hide gloves.

Just before entering the forest, she grabbed one of the bowls. Not a big one as she didn't intend to be doing a particularly large painting. Actually, it was very likely she'd keep it simple from lack of enthusiasm if nothing else.

Art wasn't exactly her forte and while she did indulge Jaecar with his art interests, on her own there were several things she would've rather been doing. Would Galileo and Apollo like these berries? They'd taken a greater liking to meat but she bet the occasional berry still made them happy. Not the nightshade, for the fact she wasn't trying to damage the internal organs she'd only recently gotten into perfect shape. The others were fair game...so...perhaps she should have taken a bigger bowl afterall.

The Ravenclaw went at a leisurely pace, strolling by the bushes until she'd found the right ones. There didn't seem to be too much of an issue mixing them for now but she'd have to fit them into separate containers before she began mashing them.

Back at her table, she placed them all in separate piles about her work station.

One by one she mashed the piles with her hands, keeping the nightshade she'd also nicked in the bowl. She wanted it, but not for painting. It would be going back to her lab along with the few berries she'd left uncrushed for her birds.

SPOILER!!: Steps

1. Collect the fruit in bowls
2. Mash the fruit with your hands
3. Pick out the larger chunks when done and throw on the ground
4. Use each juice as its own color OR mix to produce colors
5. Once you have the colors you want all juiced up, add a PINCH of flour to the juice (or turmeric/ginger for those yellow-y tones)
6. PAINT! Use your fingers of some of the brushes for this! There is paper provided! Remember that nightshade is toxic if ingested! Be careful!