Friday 15th June 2012 – 'Intent' (167/366)
The Boy received a 'That's Not My Colouring Book' colouring book from a friend for his birthday and has really taken to it. He sat earlier choosing his picture, then I could hear him saying, "You need a red, an orange and a blue, but we haven't got an orange so I'll use yellow." I looked up and he was colouring in the picture as the example one was coloured. I was very impressed with my little man.
How To Make A Rainbow Butterfly
This craft activity might seem obvious to some, to others they'll think "I remember doing this as a child!" and it may be complete nonsense to the rest of you. Either way, it's such a lovely and simple activity that I wanted to share it.
Remember as a child when you did those Christmas cards or firework pictures involving cut-outs in black sugar paper and ripped tissue paper? Basically it's that! I saw it late last night on Mini-Eco and she explained it so beautifully that I found myself cutting out a butterfly on navy card (no black!) at half past midnight! (She's even got a template to use)
You'll need:
- coloured tissue paper
- black card with shapes cut out
- glue
I am not going to explain any further because it's so simple it's unbelievable! Just make sure you leave it to dry completely before trimming around the edges.
We love it, and it looks so effective with the sun shining through that I'm going to do a bumblee and a dragonfly too.
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How To Paint Monet's Waterlillies With Children
The rather inspiring RedTedArt has started a new project up and it is one that I was happy to jump on board with straightaway. She would like us to investigate the Great Artists with our children and see what art work we can help them create based on the painting that we've explored.
I've discussed this with Maggy and her plan is not to set a theme or artists to study each time, apart from the first post where she's intending to give us the suggestion of Jackson Pollock. He's a bit modern and out there for me and I wasn't initially bitten by this idea, but since she suggested it I've thought some more and will join in. However, there is one that screamed out loud to me that I had to pick as my first project and Maggy approved.
You see in the National Museum of Wales' art gallery is this beauty:
How on earth could I refuse the call of an original Monet?
And so a few weeks ago we popped into Cardiff on the train, trekked over to the museum and sat down and read Laurence Anholt's children's book about Monet: The Magical Garden of Claude Monet. It was incredibly quiet there that day, just a few 'ladies what lunch' having a saunter, and an elderly, deaf attendant who watched us reading and looking at the painting before coming over to chat to us.
The Boy loved looking at the painting but the magnificence and significance of it, and his surroundings completely escaped him. Because let's face it, he's two and it's just some splodges of paint really.
However, since then, he hasn't stopped 'reading' the book to himself and chatting about when we went to the museum. Admittedly, sometimes he's waffling on about the dinosaurs we saw, but generally the event sunk in. And so on the weekend we settled down in the kitchen with a plethora of materials and an image of the painting (thank you iPad).
As a class teacher, art lessons consist of me pointing to the art cupboard and the different paper types on the shelf and allowing the children to select for themselves. The Boy is two so I'd provided him with a selection of paint colours, paper colours and types for him to choose from, but I was still controlling the materials. As he gets older, he'll have more choice.
We discussed the colours in the painting, the brush strokes and what he could see. Then he had a go himself.
He experimented with different brush strokes and use of the sponge.
He got to practise his scissor, and ripping, skills.
He used collage materials for the leaves and then painted the lillies on top.
And then, because Monet didn't have it but we both know he'd have used it if he could have, we sprinkled on glitter to make the water sparkle!
What do you think of our masterpiece?
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I'm linking this up to RedTedArt's Great Artists.
Saturday 12th May 2012 – 'Snip' (133/366)
Monday 7th May 2012 – 'Rainbow Jay' (128/366)
I'm choosing this image as my 366 link-up because I love the concentration on his face. This is the first time I've seen him colour in so well. He normally scribbles randomly over the area, here he is really trying to stay within the lines and colour the whole area.
Oh and the order of the colouring pencils pleases me. Apart from those greens.
Rainbow Weaving (Scrap Art)
A fortnight ago, I read this post about scrap centres from The Alexander Residence. It reminded me about the recycling centre that I used to visit when I was training to be a nursery nurse, and I wondered if sixteen years later, it was still going. It is, and it's been improved. I had a little think about what activity we could do using the resources that we'd be able to find there.
Then the next day, a post from the Goddess that is Cathy at The Nurture Store popped into my inbox about the new Kids Art Explorers' Challenge. The theme was paper-free art, and suddenly I knew exactly what I was going to be doing with The Boy.
His favourite song at the moment is the 'Mo-mo' song from 'Show Me, Show Me'. We both pretend to be robots, put on our best mechanical voice and do robot arms while singing about the colours of the rainbow. It's quite amusing and I'm trying to get it on video to post, but he runs away screaming whenever I produce the FlipCam lately.
When we finally managed to get to our local scrap centre we had great fun delving in all the bins, finding treasures, discussing what we could use them for, getting over excited with various materials that we had no use for (let alone space) and saving oodles and oodles of dosh.
Originally I'd intended to do this activity on the patio using the bamboo fence. But it's currently submerged in eleventy billion feet of water so I tied netting up against the bannister upstairs on the landing and we did the activity there instead.
I knew the iPad was an essential educational tool! We gathered our resources together, examined a reference picture and discussed which colours we needed. An interesting discussion about what colour indigo is ensued and then a discussion about the difference between that and violet. Try and explain hues to a two year old.
Life became a lot easier for both The Boy and me once I'd remembered he is left-handed and realised that threading from left-right was causing him issues. One of the many things that need reversing when teaching a left-hander.
Admiring our handiwork and our beautiful rainbow!
This was a really enjoyable activity and The Boy loves sitting and feeling the different textures in the rainbow along with singing Mo-mo's song. The total cost of the resources for the activity was £1. (Just ignore the cost of the iPad)
You can search for your own nearest scrap centre here.
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I'm linking this up to The Nurture Store's Kids Art Explorers Project.
Monday 30th April 2012 – 'Impressionist' (121/366)
Friday 20th April 2012 – 'Art Critic' (111/366)
We went to Cardiff Museum today and visited the art gallery with the specific intention of looking at the Monets there. He was entranced by the paintings, possibly as much as he was by the echo.
This is for a forthcoming art project initiated by RedTedArt, keep your eyes peeled!
Saturday 24th March 2012 – 'Faceless Crew' (84/366)
Today we walked over to Cardiff Bay with Mr. TBaM's visiting parents. The walk over to Pizza Express takes us past this scuplture, a well-known one in the area, and one that I find haunting and poignant. From one angle, this shows a face, from the other side, it is the wreck of a ship.
"This is the Merchant Seafarers' War Memorial, which commemorates the merchant seamen of Cardiff and the surrounding area who left during the Second World War, never to return."
My maternal great, grandfather (William) was a captain on a boat sailing out of Cardiff during the Second World War. He died at sea but no details have ever been given or known about his death, which is shrouded in mystery. William, like many other men, was enlisted to help out with secret missions during this time, and it seems that he is one of these faceless men to which this sculpture is dedicated.
