Frottage Project

 Our world is full of amazing textures which are fun to touch.  You can use these textures to make art.  We worked inside, but if it is dry out, you could have a wonderful walk outdoors and collect lots of rubbings!  This project is good for people of all ages.

Collect all kinds of interesting textures from your house, and make a workspace with some newspaper.

I love this bumpy and beautiful mini tart form.  It got flattened by the rubbing!

Since the cheese grater is sharp on one side, I taped it down, with the sharp side underneath.

Erik is a young artist who helps out with the upper primary class.  He demonstrated the method for children who were finished painting their clay boats.  He always takes projects in interesting directions and inspires the children with his intensity.  The children working below are from the kindergarten/first grade class.

After peeling the paper off the crayons the children rubbed over the textures onto paper, the crayons held flat.

 It's fun to layer the textures on top of one another.  It's also fun to use different colors to see how they mix.  Most of the children just experimented with the shapes and textures, making abstract compositions, but some made flowers and other kinds of pictures.

 Some of the children became very absorbed and spent a long time doing frottage.  Some only stayed with it a short time.

 I was fascinated with what Erik created, which shows how far an older artist can take the explorations.

A Starry Night in the Forest

 It snowed the day before we did this project, so even though spring is on its way, there is still time to to think of winter's austere beauty.

I asked the children to imagine that they were in the forest at night.  Had anyone ever been in the forest at night?  Some had and we talked about it.  I talked about how I can see the full moon from my bedroom window, and how beautiful tree limbs (and everything) look in the light of the moon.  We imagined that we were standing in the forest looking up at the moon, with the branches of trees coming in from all sides.

I had collected some tree limbs with Karma and had put them in a vase in the middle of the table.  We looked at them and chatted a little bit about how trees have thick trunks, big branches, smaller branches, and twigs.

First the children used something round to trace a moon...a cup, a biscuit cutter, a jar lid.  If you use a thick blue marker to do the tracing, that will make it easier to paint around your moon.  They dipped their big brushes into pale gray paint and put some craters on their moons.

Some of the children used the crayon to shade their moon.

 Then the children drew trees with black wax crayons, and painted some slightly watered down ultramarine tempera paint over it all.

 I can't stop looking at this one, which has no stars but seems very misty and mysterious.

To do the stars, cover a table with newspaper and load your brush with watery white paint.  Practice tapping the metal part of the brush, (the ferrule,) on your finger.  Tiny specks of white paint will speckle down.  Are they stars?  Are they snowflakes?  You decide.

Those twinkling little white dots look magical on the deep ultramarine blue, and this moon looks incredibly three-dimensional with the shading.

Have fun!

Clay Boat Project for Kids

 My little boy made a sculpture of a man in a boat at the wonderful Wheeler School in Providence, Rhode Island a few years ago, and I always wondered about that man in his boat.  Where was he going?  What was in the basket?  Why was he wearing a big sun hat?

This project is inspired by that one.  I decided to tell the children that they were going to a tropical island.  They needed a big hat because it was hot and sunny.  If they had all the things they needed on the island, their family, food, and a shelter, what would they bring with them, (and put in the basket in their boat?)

This sculpture is so delightful.  This happy guy seems to be looking around at the sights, and he will never be hungry with the red grill and the hamburger cooking on it.

 So what would each child bring on their trip?  I thought this was an interesting question, but as we started to discuss it I realized that I would present it differently next time.  Most of the children wanted to bring a generator and their video games and T.V.'s.  I was surprised and found myself wanting to influence their decisions because I couldn't believe they were going to be sitting inside the dark palm leaf hut playing video games on the paradisiacal tropical island.  It made me want to hurl the video games into the lagoon!  It really wasn't what I had in mind!

 Next time I will paint a picture with words about what kind of fun you could have on a tropical island a la Swiss Family Robinson, then I will let them go with their imaginations to bring whatever they want without comment from me.

 This character has a sailboat and a visor on.

This guy has a lot of vitality!  He looks to me like he just got to the island and is about to spring out of the boat. Look at the eager and wistful little dog.

 Another happy traveller with a sweet dog!

 The bright pink and yellow which this pretty long-haired girl is wearing make me happy.

 There is one child in my class who loves technology and machines, and he made a very detailed submarine with a very tiny person riding on top.

It even has an amazing tiny propeller!

Another sub with a tee-tiny person on top....

This submarine is made of wet clay by a boy who missed the clay modeling lesson.  I was looking the other way when he started to paint it.  I wonder if the paint stuck?

There was a lot of talk about hamburgers that day (I think the children were hungry!) and one child even made a big hamburger with his leftover clay.  I pretended to take a bite and told him it was yummy.  He smiled at me.

A Quilt for Us

 The night I picked out these colors, for a quilt for my husband's and my bed, I couldn't sleep.  I was excited, because these colors make me so happy!!!!!!!!

 Here they are all cut up, in all kinds of rectangles of different widths and lengths.  I will arrange the rectangles in bars.

 This is what my husband saw, in the living room, when he got home from a trip yesterday.  Poor man. He is so patient.

 The fabric with the purple birds and deep yellow background is the main fabric.  I've never done a quilt in these kinds of colors, and I'm not sure what I'm doing, but I couldn't resist them.  I want our room to look like springtime and sunshine!

 I think I need to go back to what I started with.  I was trying to combine colors yesterday, and something wasn't working.  I thought it might be that I needed a lot of white, and I cut up a sheet which was getting worn out, but that doesn't seem to be it.

 Today I am going to go back to look at the first picture in this post, and simplify my color choices.  I think when I added fabrics from my stash, the quilt started going in several different directions.

I think I need to go back to this center fabric, hanging on the back of a dining room chair, and not use the fabrics which "almost" work.  I've always thought that a few mavericks keep things exciting....but maybe it's too much this time....Especially since these colors are an all new experience for me.

Clay Nesting Birds

 This was a wonderful project and the kindergarten and first grade children had so much fun.  I think everyone loves clay!  I had to use air-dry clay because we don't have a kiln.  It worked pretty well except that it is drier than regular clay, so the children were not always successful at getting their pieces to stick together after drying.  I went in before class and glued things back together.

 I demonstrated how to make a pinch pot for the nest.  Then I showed them how a bird is made of simple shapes.  A ball for the head, a larger ball for the body, a flat sausage for the tail, and a cone for the beak.  I rolled a ball in my hands to show them.  I rolled a sausage on the table.  When you roll a sausage, you have to roll both back and forth and to the sides, or your sausage will get flat before you are ready.  Look at this charming little sculpture.  The birds are separate from the nest, because the little girl who made it wants to be able to play with her sculpture, and put the birds in and out.  Look at the sweet birds, with the newborn baby bird sitting on top of the mother's back.  The mother seems to be spreading her wings to keep her baby from falling off.

 This nest has so many eggs that it takes two birds to keep them warm!  To stick separate pieces of clay together, take a pointy tool, (we used wooden skewers) and draw tic tac toe games on each piece.  Put a touch of water on top of the tic tac toe scratches with your fingertip, and join.  Try to smooth the pieces together with your fingers or a popsicle stick.

 This bird is keeping her eggs warm in a very relaxing way.

 The boy who made this wanted his bird to be next to the nest.  Maybe it is landing or taking off.

 This yellow bird seems hunkered down on the nest, waiting patiently, her wings spread protectively.

 The little girl who made this showed me that she made pink with red and white for the bird's head.

 This bird seems so cozily nestled inside her nest.

 What a dynamic little sculpture this is.  Look how one bird's tail is cocked high, so she looks very perky and bright.  The other bird is landing or taking flight.  The painting is colorful!  Polka dots!

See how this pink-bodied bird has her wings spread over her eggs.  I love these sculptures.  As the children made them birds were twittering outside and we all felt that spring was coming. Looking at the sculptures touched my heart because of the tenderness, protectiveness, and patience shown by the parent birds for their eggs and babies.