Hearts 4 Ways....

We did these hearts for Valentines Day....yes I may be just a wee bit behind in my posts!  Watch out I'm about to send a flourish of backdated posts your way.  Its going to look as if we have been the busiest art bees ever..

Back to the hearts - can I just say I LOVE drawing and painting hearts?  They are so easy and simplistic and somehow always look really good.  Most children can draw hearts without too much trouble.

I've been inspired over the past few years by Hazel McNab who has been drawing a heart a day for over 1000 days.  How awesome, how creative!  Some of the children were struggling on 4 different ways to draw or colour their hearts and I would be saying well look at Hazel she can think of a different way to draw a heart EVERY SINGLE DAY!  Check out her 366 Hearts project here.

 

We also looked at Jim Dines hearts 'cause you can't really do a watercolour heart without looking at his fabulous hearts.  Those drips and colours he used were just wonderful...





I also used this lesson to let the children freely experiment with different watercolour techniques and materials.  You don't need that big list of supplies I've listed below.

What you need:

• Watercolour paper cut into 4 squares
• Black A3 paper to mount them on
• Liquid Watercolours & Paintbrushes
• Black markers and / or oil pastels
• Lemon juice (optional)
• Rubbing alcohol (optional)
• Salt (optional)
• Watercolour pencils, Inktense sticks, Water soluble pastels (optional)
• Glitter and sequins (optional) 

How To:

• We practised drawing hearts different ways in our visual arts diaries as a warm up
• Then we drew 4 different hearts on our watercolour paper squares
• These were painted whilst experimenting with different watercolour techniques
• Leave to dry
• Next lesson glue onto black background and add glitter and sequins

The Results:

My heart is full of Art.....

Cheers
Fiona

Still LIfe Pears and some observational drawing exercises

When the weather is good I love to get the children to go out into the garden to do some observational drawing.  Its a great relaxing lesson and perfect for the first one of the year.

Its so important to teach the skill of drawing what we see rather than copying something else or just using our imaginations.  There are many benefits to observational drawing such as slowing down and taking our time, learning to concentrate on what we really see and noticing the small details.  Drawing what we see is difficult and children will learn that improvement takes practice and you need to make mistakes to learn from them.

We started the lesson with a Blind Contour Drawing (idea taken from the Camp Creek Blog).  We used paper plates on pencils so the children couldn't see what they were drawing.  We used flowers as the subject. These were done in our Visual Arts Diary which we will be using all year for such exercises and free drawing.

Blind Contour drawing.  The two wobbly flowers are drawn without looking (paper plate covering drawing) they then had another go when they could see what they were drawing.

We then moved onto drawing and painting Pears which I had placed all around the table. This lesson was inspired by one at Deep Space Sparkle - thanks again Patty!

What you need:

• Tempera Cake Paints
• Paintbrushes
• Yellow, black and white oil pastels
• Real Pears for display
• White A3 paper

How To:

• Hold a pear up and get the children to really look at its shape and colour
• Ask them to draw 1, 2  or 3 pears on their paper with a yellow oil pastel
• Paint
• Let dry
• Add black pastel for outline and white pastel for highlights

The Results:

Whilst the paint was drying on the pears the children did some observational drawing in the garden.

Rock climbing wall and slide in our garden

Cheers
Fiona

Holiday Challenge Entries and Winners

I run a holiday challenge every holidays to encourage the children to keep creating even if they are not attending classes.  This is completely optional and usually about a third of my students participate.

Our challenge for the past summer holidays was to draw or paint your favourite holiday activity.  It was great fun looking at all the artwork produced and the different styles and mediums used. I also loved hearing about all the wonderful activities the children did - I have to admit I was a tad jealous of some of them....

All of the drawings submitted were wonderful and every single child that entered should be proud of themselves for creating something and giving it a go.  I've put photos of all the entries below.

I'm pleased to announce the following winners:

1st Prize - Esme (Saturday class)

2nd Prize - Romani (Tuesday class)

3rd Prize - Lizzie (Saturday class)

Highly Commended Award - Benji (Saturday class)

Highly Commended Award - Mia (Tuesday class)

Highly Commended Award -Harriet (Thursday class)

 All the other wonderful entries:

The certificates, prizes and returned artwork has been placed in the children's lockers.

If you are looking at some ways to introduce more creativity into your household Ana at Babble Dabble Do added a wonderful post today called 42 Creative Ideas for Families.  These are wonderful SIMPLE activities that anyone can do.  I've printed them out and put them on our fridge.  I totally agree with her that "EVERY SINGLE PERSON IS CREATIVE".

Cheers
Fiona

School Holiday Workshops Wrap up....

Did we have fun creating in the past school holidays or what!!

The kids are back at school and its now time for me a have a quick breather before diving into my term classes starting next week.....

There is no better way to get excited about art than by reliving all the fabulous art work produced during the school holiday workshops... The kids that came along were just fabulous - well behaved, polite, enthusiastic and so so creative!

Here's what we did:

Gingerbread Houses....
Yum Yum Yum... 
Can you believe we still have some left in our house..

Monsters....
I thought I took photos yet I can't find them yet I can tell you the monsters produced were so so fun!

Science Art....
Lots of bubbles, mess and fun.  Again no photos sorry - I know this one was a little chaotic so maybe I really did forget.  This class is always such fun and oh so messy - lucky for the parents I get to clean up the mess not you (unless your children convinced you to do all the experiments AGAIN since I gave you the instructions....)

Turtles and Seals in Watercolours....
These are so colourful - love them as always!  

Pottery....
Not many photos of the lovely time we had at this workshop.  A big thanks to my Mum who came along and helped.  The children had a wonderful time experiencing the pottery wheel and making some of the most amazing things out of clay.

  
Cakes, Desserts and Gumball machines...
This workshop made us all a little hungry.  Sorry no pictures of the deserts made out of air dry clay. The rain arrived and everyone skedaddled.

Mosaics....
I always want to keep the mosaics after grouting and not let them go home - I love them so much.  An amazing job done by all.  It was lovely to see parents and children working together on a project.

Painted Pandas......
I'm amazed at how different every single one of these is.  This was a lovely morning with a small class and lots of fun experimenting and painting away.

Keep creating till next holidays!

Cheers
Fiona

Gingerbread House & Cookie Decorating

I just spent a fabulous Saturday helping 23 children decorate 23 mini gingerbread houses.  Yes......that means I baked and assembled 23 gingerbread houses.  Mad!  We also decorated over 100 gingerbread cookies!  It was certainly one mammoth baking week for me.  Here's some pics of the assembly...

Here's some of the cookies and gingerbread houses ready to decorate:

Fondant and lolly bowls ready to be used:

 

Most of them completed (the kids were off having morning tea whilst I took this photo):

Some decorated houses and cookies:

All of the children did a fabulous job - well done.  I wonder how many will last till Christmas day????

A few hints if you are attempting these yourself:

• I made my own templates out of cardboard first, assembled the house in cardboard to check it worked, then cut around these (if you can purchase cutters that would be a whole lot easier!)
• Use royal icing to stick your house together and attach the lollies
• Assemble the walls first, wait until the icing is hard, then do the roof (I waited a day in between)
• Prop the first wall up with something (I used a cup)
• Any lollies will do.  If you have a large group like I did you can separate the lollies into bowls so everyone has the same.  If they need more of something they can trade with someone else at the table (interestingly most kids had lots of lollies left that they didn't use).
• I also gave them little balls of green, red and white fondant to make extra things with.
• Put the royal icing in small zip lock bags, squeeze to a corner and snip off the corner.  The children can use this to "glue" on their lollies.
• Add snow by using some runny icing (just mix icing mixture and water together) and sprinkle dessicated coconut on top
• Wrap with cellophane will make them keep for longer (and protect from flies and ants)
•  An easy way to decorate cookies is to cover with white fondant and then draw on them using edible markers.
• Use pieces of cardboard covered in foil as boards.  Get the children to decorate the board as well.

 Merry Christmas Everyone!

Cheers
Fiona