christmas card time!

M's first go at printing, quite surprised how successful they were and it was also significantly less stressful than trying to teach a class of year 9s who think they know everything already !! 

We used polystyrene printing sheets which are really the easiest was to do printing with little ones (and sometimes big ones too!) we drew into the sheets using cocktail sticks and biro and also pressed christmas themes biscuit cutters in.

You can buy black printing ink from most art shops and rollers too. seawhite is a great art supplier near brighton. Printing ink is water based and does wash out but it is sticky and messy! It also takes at least 24 hours to dry. Computer paper or thin card is ideal for printing onto, sugar paper doesn't work so well, newspaper and magazines are also good. 

Roll out the ink onto a flat surface, a sheet of acetate works well or perspex, or you can buy printing trays. Roll it not too thick or too thin, it should make a sticky sound, if it doesn't it's too thick. Have three areas - One for rolling the ink, one for rolling the ink onto the polystyrene and one for printing in onto paper. You will need two rollers, and ink one and a clean one.

Once you've rolled the ink out, roll it onto your piece of polystyrene, in both directions so it is all covered, turn the polystyrene over onto your paper or card and press down firmly, turn it over so the paper is on the top then use your clean roller to roll in both directions and carefully peel the paper off.

It sounds complicate but it really isn't, it sometimes takes a bit of practice to get a good print but children of all ages love it!

 I drew out a star and a tree and M filled them with patterns by pressing in pen lids, etc.

We tried out creating some repeat patterns - once a textile designer always a textile designer!

I cut and folded the card first for M to print onto which worked well.

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the superest duperest playground!

Inspired by the big draw event we went to last week drawing futuropolis I re-created it in our kitchen. Mati loves making and drawing playgrounds at the moment, creating exciting climbing frames, twisty slides and not forgetting the all important cafe. After spending the first part of the morning using building blocks to make a playground for her Play Mobil people in her room we moved downstairs to the kitchen. I taped two lengths of lining paper to the floor and we made another playground out of blocks to give us some ideas.

I found a selection of different geometric shaped objects to draw round , saucepan lids, baking trays etc to create our playground drawing. Drawing round objects is great to build confidence with drawing for children or adults, it allows you to create images by putting shapes together (see my fun in the kitchen post) It is also good for developing coordination and fine motor skills. Mati was really enthusiastic about suggesting different things we could draw round.

We built up our playground, both suggesting ideas for what to include. Mati suggested using pipe cleaners to make a twisty slide that we could draw round and she got very involved in this task.

Once we had the basic shapes we began to add our own drawings (water fountains) patterns and colour. We used felt tips for drawing round the objects and wax crayons and paint to add pattern and colour, Mati flicked paint to make rain obviously realistic about the British weather! She also remembered that at the De La Warr Pavilion people also made 3D objects out of paper to add to the map of futuropolis so we did the same thing.

The final (so far!) touch was some collage using tin foil and scraps of holographic card, Mati used these to create an icy cold river and an ice skating rink.

So then all that was needed was some children to play in the park.....

 

 

This really kept Mati entertained all day and I've left it taped to the floor so we may even continue to add to it tomorrow. It would be a good activity for friends or siblings of different ages to do together. Even the baby was able to join in by doing a bit of scribbling, as it was a collaborative effort no one minded her drawing over out drawings. It is a good exercise for learning to share and work together.

Other ideas for large scale collaborative drawings - drawing a town or a city you know, a city for the future, an machine/invention, a house/houses

 

 

 

Futuropolis

Today we went to a Big Draw event at the De la warr pavilion  in bexhill . Today was part 1 of a 2 part event - Futuropolis  During half term a 3D futuristic prototype city will be built and visitors will be able to draw it and imagine what a city of the future might look like. Today we were helping to draw a map of a futuristic city. Several pieces of paper had been laid out and taped down to cover the floor of a large room, a river had been painted on it but the rest was up to the public! Here are some photos of the section we worked on which was a futuristic park! Mati loved it and I have got lots of ideas for similar projects to try out at home.

We are hoping to go to in half term and help to develop the 3D futuropolis! There is a very nice cafe there too and it's right on the beach - lots of space for little ones to run around outside and child friendly inside too. There are lots of other brilliant looking Big Draw events on all over the country for the whole of October too.

Fun in the kitchen!

I can't believe I've never thought of doing this before - would go down really well with teenagers at school too, a good way to reduce the "fear" of drawing and introduce colour, pattern and negative space. Mati loved doing this and came up with lots of her own ideas of objects to draw round. I made sure I asked her permission before I drew over any of her shapes and she asked me if she could draw over mine! I think we will come back to this to add more colour and pattern, areas of collage would be good too.  could get quite carried away with this (...or more carried away may be?!) 

I got the idea from Annie's lovely blog. 

http://anniebrundrit.blogspot.co.uk

A drawingpaintingstickingmaking place

I haven't posted for ages, mainly due to being busy moving house with two small children. Now we finally have some space I have been able to make a proper area for mati to make stuff in. (I'm hoping an area for me to make stuff in will follow shortly!) I was inspired by my slightly out of control pinterest addiction! So here it is....

I started by measuring the whole area I wanted to use and drawing out a plan, before we went to Ikea. Normally i just go to Ikea grab stuff that looks useful and try and make it fit in the house later!!

We already had the table which is from the the Great Little Trading Company

It is a really useful desk - I can't seem to find it on their website now but it is very similar to this desk
infact this one may be more useful with the trays but with a 9 month old on the scene I wanted a box underneath the desk to keep things away from little hands!

I used the system of hanging rails, hooks and pots in our old flat for everything from storing cuttlery, to make up, to sewing stuff! It is all part of the Ikea Bygel system which is really reasonable priced too. The rails are only £2 and the plastic pots are 60p. I also used a wire basket for bigger items such as paint boxes and a few hooks are always useful (£1 for 10!!) We had a spare rail already and I didn't buy enough pots or wire baskets to fill it but I will be doing that - you can never have too much storage!!

I bought a small  white shelf and bright red brackets and lots of these brilliant plastic boxes. I also had a couple of small card board suitcases from the Tiger Store in Brighton which is amazing - and I am not exaggerating!

 

Mati had requested a Gallery after an episode of something special and probably after seeing her Uncle Daniel's exhibition last year (www.asinglehumanbeing.co.uk - shameless plug for his work here!) So I bought a few cheap picture frames to exhibit her work in.

Before I put any of the rails etc up I painted the whole wall with black board paint. The art are is at the end of our kitchen/dining area because I wanted somewhere downstairs where mati can get on with something while the baby is having a "nap" (she doesn't nap) I really like the effect though and there is plenty of space to write shopping lists, reminders etc on too. I've found the B&Q chalk board paint is the easiest to apply and it's thicker than some of the others. It also comes in pink and blue. Don't bother with the magnetic chalk board paint - we tried it at our last flat and after 4 coats it was still barely magnetic!

I bought a magnetic white board too and some dry wipe markers just for another surface to draw on and also because we have a built in fridge freezer so there is no where for the obligatory magnetic letters and numbers to go.

Lastly I had planned to buy this wire with clips to display mati's drawings and paintings on but they were out of stock so it will have to wait till my next trip.

It seems to have been a success so far and it's great knowing where everything thing is. I've used the hanging pots for all sorts of materials, pens, pencils, sequins, paintbrushes etc. The plastic pots are good for smaller things like crayons and also small pieces of collage materials. In one suitcase I've put bits for one off projetcs like blank badges, wooden spoons, empty toilet rolls and in the other is tissue paper and bigger pieces of scrap paper for collage.

Watch this space for (hopefully) lots of exciting creations!

 

 

art station for children (or adults!)

It's been quite a while since I've managed to post anything, but now mati has this..... 

there will definitely lots more posts coming soon! (Including one about how we put this together)

Pebble People

Pebble people, pebble tea party, pebble ice cream parlour - always keep a felt tip pen or two in your bag just incase!

shhhh! I made a quiet book

having seen loads of quiet books on Pinterest I had a go myself! hopefully it will keep Mati quiet on the journey back to Norfolk... (Better quality photos to follow soon!)

Noah's Ark Quiet Book

Pebble Painting

 

As the nice weather is apparently about to take a break for a few days we thought we had better make the most of the sunshine and head to the beach this afternoon. Inspired by this image I found on Pinterest I packed some paints, (acrylics) some brushes, a cup for water and a take away tun lid for a palette. You can read about the advantages of acrylics and why I like to use a flat palette here.

This activity would be great for any age. I'd like to try it again when I'm not on my own with both little ones as painting while balancing a baby on your knee and helping a toddler doesn't lead to my best art work! Drawing on stones is something I have always done but I've never painted them in situ on the beach before. On our anual family holiday me and my Brother and Sister and Dad always painted a stone with our names on the back to leave at the place we stayed in every year. I photographed some of them a couple of years ago.

First of all we just started painting stones randomly, experimenting with marks, patterns and colours. Here are Mati's stones.

Then I suggested to Mati that we could paint some stones to look like houses. She liked that idea and it quickly developed into a road with a house, some trees and a car. We were both coming up with different ideas and Mati played with the stone cars on the road for quite a while after the painting was finished. I always talk about what I'm doing as I'm doing it. For example "This stone looks car shaped, I'm going to paint it red. Does that look like a car? I'll give it blue wheels I think" I suspect this is because I am a teacher but it seems to be really useful when doing things with Mati as she listend carefully and uses some of the ideas and makes suggestions herself etc. I've noticed her doing the same thing too!! This was how the pebble road evolved.

After a snack and a paddle in the sea it was time for a tea party. Mati loves cake so this was brillian. She really enjoyed discusssing what cakes we could make and explaining what they were like while we were painting them. I added a tea pot, a cup and a jug and then we were able to have a game of cafes!

....and then it was time for dinner (a real one not one made of pebbles!) and some sand castle building before going home to bed!

Other ideas.....

• Teenagers would love painting their initials/names onto pebbles.
• A number for a birthday card with a difference.
• Baby foot/hand prints
• Using several pebbles together to create a larger area to paint on.
• Copying a famous painting onto a pebble.
• Making a face out of pebbles - each person paints a different part of the face (eyes,noes,ears,mouth, hair)
• Consequences with pebbles

Have a look at this blog post for loads more brilliant pebble painting ideas. I can't wait to try some more of them out soon!

Pebble Painting

We spent the afternoon on the beach painting pebbles - here is a sneak preview...tea and cake anyone?

big...bigger...biggest

Today we finally got round to doing another "height chart" for Mati. This time we used black paper and oil pastels, chalk can be easily rubbed out but has the problem of getting everywhere and needing fixing with hairspray/fixative. Oil pastels can be messy though and aren't that easy to get out of clothes, carpets, furniture etc so the choice is yours! We also did a first "height chart" for the baby which Mati really enjoyed doing and the baby thought was very amusing.

 

I found the initial drawing round Mati was a bit out of proportion to I changed it a bit to make it look right. I drew the faces on. I've been doing lots of drawings of the girls on my other blog but you could print out a photo onto A4 paper and stick it on or cut out eyes, noses and mouths photo fit style from magazines.

Again I tried to let Mati be in charge but I couldn't help adding a few bits here and there. She got really involved in what her and the baby should "wear" e.g a scarf for her and a warm jumper for the baby!

Mati wanted me to draw round her hopping as this is something she has learnt to do recently!



Mati - 2yrs old, 2 1/2 and 3 years old
 

Portable play mats made from Graze boxes!

I still haven't got over my excitement about making my own play mats and finding a use for my old graze boxes especially after Mati enjoyed playing with her space play mat using her Playmobil people for nearly an hour this morning. She was really excited about the idea of making more of them. So after a trip to the park to make the most of a relatively sunny and not freezing cold day we got out the glue and collage material!

First I cut the join between the box and it's spine to allow it to lay flat. Then I taped round the edges so it would hold its shape better.

We were using a special edition spring graze box with pictures of flowers and field inside so a farm was the obvious choice of play mat. We recently visited Spring Barn Farm so Mati was keen to base her play mat on this farm. It had a soft play area and 3 slides inside plus the all important cafe!! You can see these are all included.

I find it quite hard not to interfere too much and take over! I tried to let mati lead the way. Mati is pretty good with glue now but I had to add a bit extra to make sure it all stuck down. We used a combination of pritt stick and PVA and we just used whatever scraps of paper we had left over from other projects plus cotton wool for the sheep (my inspired idea!!) I asked mati what she wanted to include and then I cut it out or if it could be made from torn paper (grass, ponds etc) she did it. I made suggestions too of what to include and what different materials we could use.

The thing I was most excited about was that we were able to use the graze box snack dividers and small fields by sticking it over some tissue paper we had already stuck down (I've been saving these too convinced that they have some fantastic use!)

We were both pleased with the results and Mati's playmobil people enjoyed their Sunday afternoon trip to the farm!

I was on a roll so I also made a portable road play mat!

This is just the napkins that come with the graze box stuck down and then black sugar paper to make the roads ad other coloured paper/craft foam for the park, houses, bridge etc. You could make this a real journey e.g from your home to school, including things you might see along the way.

Here is the space play mat again from earlier....I painted the graze box for this one (on the outside) However the box began to go a bit soggy and warped so I think I would avoid doing this in future. I was using acrylics with not very much water. The play mat is based on a story I made up for mati about her going to the moon for a picnic with me and her dad.

I've got loads of ideas for more of these - ones based on nursery, winter/Christmas, holidays, the supermarket, journeys, the beach etc etc. I just cut the shapes out free hand but you could print out pictures to use as templates or use photos, stickers of cut out images from magazines. Children don't worry too much if a duck doesn't really look like a duck etc! Mati made a play mat afterwards entirely on her own with a few random pieces of tissue paper stuck down but to her it was a road and mountains and a swimming pool!

I collected loads of ideas for portable play mats and portable dolls houses (a future project!) on Pinterest so have a look!

I'd love to see your play mats - you don't have to use graze boxes, a piece of card cut out from a cereal box folded in half will do or just a piece of paper. A DVD box might be good too. I like the idea of a box as you can put figures/animals in it to carry around. I do need to work out how to make some sort of clip for it and may be a handle?

portable play mat

I've been keeping old Graze boxes as I was sure there was a brilliant way to re-use them if only I could find out what it was...well after trawling Pinterest last night (my new way to spend Saturday nights!) I discovered loads of make your own portable play mats ... So here is my first graze box turned into a portable play mat! I made this one for Mati but I will have a go at making one with her this afternoon.