NGA Kids Gallery - WordArt

 

Word Art is even greater for a child to enjoy, remove the preconception from the appreciation of the word meaning and you have nothing but the shape, colour and placement.   For a young child word art might be missing intended depth but brings a Pop Art like appreciation for design and beauty in the every day things we are surrounded by.

Butter Biscuit Recipe

Ingredients
1 egg
225gms butter
3/4 cups castor sugar
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/3 cups flour
or 2 cups flour and 1/3 cup of cocoa'

mix first six ingredients with electric mixer until fluffy.  Gradually stir in flour by hand until well mixed.  Chill for 2 to 3 hours in refridgerator.  Preheat oven to 200C.  Roll out half of the dough at a time on a floured board until about 1/2 cm thick.  Cut using cutters and place on ungreased baking sheet.

Bake for approx 6 minutes, in a gas oven, until edges are starting to brown.  Remove and cool on baking sheet .  When cool use icing for decoration by spreading evenly over the whole cookie.  Sweet Sugarbelle has the most amazing walk throughs on decorating and biscuit making.  These biscuits where perfect for cutting and tasted great before decorating.  Unfortunately the dogs broke in while we were playing in the garden so nobody but Stinky Chinko got to try the final product.  Kiki stood at the door looking nervous and wanting to distance herself from what was taking place inside, either that or she was the worst look out in the history of biscuit heists.

Butter icing
3 cups icing sugar
85 gms butter
1 to 2 tsp milk
1 tsp vanilla

Sugar glaze
2 cups icing sugar
4 tsp golden syrup
4 tsp milk
food colouring (optional)

mix thoroughly and spread evenly over cookie as a base for decorating.  Will dry shiny and firm.

Shadow Puppet Theatre

Beginning my conscious life in Malaysia, my introduction to shadow puppet theatre was to spectacularly intricate paper puppets and stories of romance and demons.  It was something I forgot about except for a deep rooted aesthetic that draws me towards works by artists like Emma Kidd. 

 

Recently I was inspired by beautiful puppets from Moulin Roty but I had not yet come across their fabric shadow puppet theatre or I would probably have approached it differently.

Materials:
some black paper/card
brads for attaching moving parts of your puppets together
black paint
baking paper
bamboo skewers
hole punch
string
scissors or craft knife

1.  Draw out your puppets,  cut out, punch holes (it is a messy and inexact business to just push the brads through the paper) and attach moving parts together using the brads.
2.  Cut out a length of the baking paper about the width of a hallway or doorway and paint some scenery upon it.  We were running with five little monkeys sitting in a tree, teasing a crocodile.
3.  Once dry I used some clear tape folded over with the string at the fold attached to the top of the theatre scene leaving enough string on either side to tape to the wall, door frame or wind around the leg of a chair or table.  Repeat across the bottom.
4. Affix the skewers to your puppets, one per moving part, for the monkeys I was manipulating them by hand as well as the sticks but it was not a good idea to have so many moving parts.

While looking for some info on how other people had built a fabric shadow puppet theatre I came across two wonderful blog posts.

The first is from Mousehouse who used inspiration from a Seedling workshop to create a great Gruffalo themed box theatre and puppets.

The second is a Giverslog tutorial on creating your own beautiful fabric puppet theatre.

Gardening and Nature

We have been doing some plant propagation lately, starting with some peas, now waiting to plant out these gorgeous nasturtiums.   I planned a nature walk so we can collect seeds but the day took some other twists and at the end we found ourselves at the zoo where I was very excited to be able to collect some seeds with my little ones.  I had completely forgotten our intent when my son pointed out seeds lying all over the floor at the base of a tree there.  Then onward and with a new eye for the plants around the zoo we collected some Hakea seed pods.  I cannot wait for them to open and then have a go at growing some natives.

When we were making our initial plans I put together a list of plants that you can collect seeds from at this time of year in the box gum grassland around Canberra.

Canberra Nature Park Maps 

Impressionism Lesson Plan

I have started my student lead journey into the world of teaching art to children.  Armed with a theoretical introduction, reading through Drawing with Children by Mona Brooks and Drawings of People by the Under 5's,  and my own experiences as a Mum I have recently begun taking art classes at the Miniature Railway.  At the moment these classes are a dollar coin donation to help cover expenses and only open by invitation.  It is something I want to do for my own children and for the enjoyment I gain through introducing art into the world of children.  Photo care of My Photos and Things.

The following outlines the lesson on introducing impressionism.  It is spring here so the focus is on gardens and flowers in impressionism.

Materials:
1. Acrylics
2. lead pencil
3. paper

Concepts:
Impressionism marked a move away from trying to make objects look like they do in real life.  Instead it gave the feeling of a moment in time by relaying the impression of an object or a scene through the eyes of the artist.   This is great for children, who are already overcoming a sense of their own capabilities in relation to the world around them.  Art like this can be easier for a child who has unlimited capacity for free brush strokes and uninhibited expression.

Books:
Olivia by Ian Falconer.  This book contains several styles of art including the work of Degas.

Artists:

Claude Monet
The first painter who exhibited works with a free style not trying to look like a photograph of the subject was Monet.  His works elicited a response from critics that sound like censors today criticising heavy metal music.

And this the collection of botched-up things being exhibited to the public without any thought of the fatal consequences they may entail. Yesterday in the Rue de Peletier an unfortunate man was arrested because on coming out of the exhibition he had started to bite passers-by.  – Albert Wolff, review of the second Impressionist exhibition, Le Figaro, 1876.

Vincent VanGough
Possibly one of the most famous impressionists, Van Gough was wracked by self criticism and madness but produced some of the most emotional works.  Whoever was lucky enough to visit the Masterpieces from Paris exhibition would have seen the vivid colours in Starry Night that you just cannot appreciate through replications and photographs. 

Degas
Although there is a focus on spring and impressionists work depicting flowers and garden scenes, Degas will be getting thrown in the mix via the book for today, 'Olivia'.

Gustav Klimt (not famous for his impressionism but still producing around the same time he had some pieces influenced by impressionism and pointillism.)

Lesson Printout:
Building on the ability to copy elements of an image and utilise the "alphabet" of shapes to visually articulate an object with simple shape language: circles, angles, curved and straight lines.

 

Van Gough still life oil painting -  Vase with 15 Sun Flowers.  Every young artist will experience reproducing the work of a famous artists, whether walking through a gallery or flicking through one of the many art history books they will be exposed to over the course of their study.  This is a crude replica of this great artists work aimed at creating a template for very young artists to play purely with colour, the vibrant and warm colours of spring: orange, red, yellow, white and green.

Inspiration:

Thaumatrope

One of simplest optical illusions to create is the thaumatrope.  No doubt you have seen the bird and the cage thaumatrope at some time.  It is a disc on a string with pictures on each side depicting something which, when spun, combine into a single image.

My eldest wanted a dinosaur eating, my youngest a dog.  On a bit of an olde Victorian theme today.  My eldest has just run inside with a feather asking for a piece of paper and some ink. 

Cloud Craft

Based on the beautiful Magnetic Board with Magnets project by Casa Trends, this is a mass production hand made effort in support of craft for the upcoming Montessori Fair.

I wanted to make some home made porcelain but came across some inexpensive, good quality air dry modelling clay.

To do this project you will need some paints (black and pink or something to mix yourself a cute pink for the cloud cheeks), either acrylic or gouache, very strong small magnets, super glue, a flower or cloud (more difficult to find) cookie cutter and either a teardrop cookie cutter or a set of rose petal fondant cutters.  The Das air dry clay dries in 24 hours.

Roll the clay to approx 1/2 cm thick.  Cut the clay and set aside to dry.  If using a flower cookie cutter just squeeze into a cloud shape as you cut.  I placed a sheet of paper under a book and weighed it down to make sure they dried without warping or curling.

Paint the face of the cloud and allow to dry.

Super glue the magnets onto the back and you have a cute magnet set.  If you use weak magnets they will still be cute but impractical.