Children with Hoops

Ethel Spowers 1890 - 1947

Summary

The scene shows a group of children running along a road playing with hoops and sticks. Compositionally it is quite busy as there are ten children depicted, four girls and six boys, and a black dog in the foreground.The children are all wearing a variety of outfits but they are in the same colours, green, blue, grey, black and red. Most of the children appear to be following a boy at the front in a kind of procession apart from a boy in the bottom right foreground and a girl with both arms raised in the bottom left hand corner. The road is depicted as a curve with green lines which seems to suggest it is a hill and also gives a sense of length, as if it carries on beyond the frames of the scene, and a sense of movement. This sense of movement is further emphasised by the long strides of the children, the running stance of the dog and the girl's hair which seems to be blowing backwards.