Culture

It has become a little tradition over the years that a girlfriend takes me to the winter exhibition at the Victorian Art Gallery for my birthday and we went off there today to see the European Masters from the Stadel Museum. While we had one little babe, it wasn't mine so it was a lovely time off wandering around the large collection of paintings that range from the beginning of impressionism, through cubism into the beginning of surrealism. There really is a large collection and it is worth a visit.

Its Official

We had our AGM at Kinder and we have a president - and yah! its not me. Thankfully another parent stepped up to take on the role - and she will be really good.

The other news from today is the opening of the Uni exhibition for my brothers art class. He has two paintings in it - these are mere studies for the larger works. His concept is a portrait as a landscape and has worked with stereophonic images - 3D like the old magic eye. Hanging in the gallery and lit properly the images just pop. All in all a good day.

Bird cage

The crafty bug has hit us today, and after a bit of talke about birds and picking up some string at the $2 shop- we were making a bird and cage. This is fairly simple to do. Blow up balloon and smear with vaseline. Soak string in PVA glue (we watered ours down a bit to help it soak in). Then begin wrapping the string around balloon - we started by tying the end of the string to the balloon, and leaving enough string to tie it up to dry. When we were finished we sprinkled a bit of glitter on it - another idea is to roll the glued string in sand for a more authentic look.



















We decided we needed a bird inside - I had planned a simple one from some scrapbooking paper, but as we had some DAS (airdrying clay) lying around, we used that. Obviously these bits are now hanging out to dry, but our plan is to pop the balloon and then hang a decorated bird up inside.

Creative Challenge - Day 30

What a day. Last day of our creative challenge and second of five mornings of swimming. Alexander is doing a school holiday swimming program which is intensive 5 day program, and will do weekly lessons in the lead up to summer. He really enjoys it, but already I feel its a drag. By the time I get everyone dressed and ensure we have all the gear, we are rushing out the door. Then the pool. It is set up just for swimming lessons, not as a public pool and as such there are steps everywhere and no real viewers area. Fine if it just a parent watching a half hour lesson. Not so much fun to drag twins along, and keep them away from the water which is less than a meter away! I have a couple of trips to and from the car to get prams and kids up the eight steps into the pool, but at least once we are in they are contained.

Enough of a whinge - theres another three days to go yet! Maybe soon it too will become a habbit - much like our creative challenge has. Today, after a visit to the library for some inspiration, he studiously stood by the window creativing colours - mixing and experimenting and enjoying himself. Hopefully while our challenge is over, we should keep this up?

Creative Day 29

As we near the end of our creative challenge I am surprised at our progress. The other day I was doing the countdown - but then today it has started to happen somewhat naturally. First Alexander was happy to help on a christmas project - I am planning to make up kits for these christmas tree pens - what do you think? Alexander was happy to help for a while, and then on his request he did some painting. As we have been doing artistic things regularly his interest has increased which is great (and really was the purpose of the challenge) He chose two colours and had a great time mixing them to make different shades of purple.

Creative Challenge Day 28

I know two posts in one day - but we have been busy. Since our drive from the beach we have been talking about these large artworks which were on the Eastlink tollway. I actually really like the giant bird, and the green blobs are pretty interesting too. Tragically I didn't realise the 'hotel' was art until I was looking for these images. I had seen this vacant hotel in the middle of nowhere! It looks normal size, not like it does here, but just skinny and I wondered (stupidly) why you would build such a small building here! Anyway, we were talking about large scale art and sculpture, and decided we shoud do some ourselves.

Rubbish from one of the big squirrels jobs was lying around at home (it is now off to the tip in our new trailer - thanks so much Jim) but we started to build with it. It is a basic house of cards design but worked really well and was effective.

Then we tried to go a bit higher - but then the inevitable happened!

Creative Day 27 - Slime

Grand final day and all was quiet on the home front. I actually got a visit to spotlight and some cape sewing done. The boys were still recovering from our trip, but when the five o'clock funnies hit (with dinner nowhere in sight) some inspiration hit, and I made slime.

Yes, really - it was so easy and not really as messy as you think. It is simply cornflour (I added some green food colouring for effect) and water. The trick is not to add too much water. Last time I made it really runny, but this time, when it looked like a brick and I couldn't move the spoon around, i stuck my hand in, and low and behold there was slime. All the kids had a play and it cleans up pretty easily too.

Creative Day 26 - Sandman

We had a couple of days away from home- some may call this a holiday, but anyone with kids knows that it is far from that. Kirsty and I went to Rye with our respective kids sans husbands during the school holidays. Eloise and Alexander played well, but got on each others nerves by the third day, as it was pretty intense. The twins too were intense. They are not keen of the old portacot - they never have been, but it is always worse when you are worrying about disturbing other peoples sleep. They quickly learnt how to climb out and spent most of the night in bed with me "sleeping"! Our respite was walking to and along the beach and sandcastles. You can always keep kids interested in building one with the promise of jumping on it!

So, after this break, I was certifiably exhausted. I don't know how single mothers do it - a big shout out to any because it is hard work. I was happy to be home - to know what the kids may break or hide, and not to have to worry about their cries - and to know that their dad was their waiting, and happy to help. Our homecoming was celebrated by a great firework show - no really, it was. We ventured outside to investigate the bangs only to be greeted with the sky lighting up in a really professional show. We don't know what it was for, but we appreciated it nonetheless.

Creative Day 25

Fabric texta bag decoration by the big kids and a bit of crayon drawing by the little ones. (they do have other tops, these just seem to be my favorites at the moment!!)

Creative Day 21- Fabric Painting

I have been doing a bit of fabric painting lately and I thought I would give you a bit of a tutorial on how I do it. The R above is for a cape for a present that will be revealed later. However here is how I did it.
Step 1 - Draw the image you wish paint onto some contact. Draw it on the front side so you don't need to flip your image.
Step 2- With a craft knife, cut along the areas where you will need to paint- ensure you save all of the pieces.
Step 3- The piece of stencil which is you border, remove the backing and stick it down in position.
I had decided to paint the yellow first, so I put in also stuck the R down as this was going to be red.
Step 4- Paint first colour and set aside to dry.
Step 5- Once dry, stick the remaining pieces over the areas that you have painted. In this case, I stuck down the star pieces over the yellow.

Step 6- Remove stencil for second colour. As you can see, I have now removed the R and covered all the yellow.

Step 7 - Paint second colour and set aside to dry.
When I am using the contact film, I leave it on until the stencil dries. Once it is all dry all the contact can be removed. For the image above, I drew the outline with a permanent texta. I don't know the brand of the fabric paint I use because its not on the labels - however I got it from a school supply catalog, however any fabric paint and sponge roller will do the job.

Hope this helps you - Nic

Creative Day 18- creating a monster!

I think I have created a monster. A very sweet and thoughtful monster, but a monster nonetheless. Why? We were wandering Chadstone for an outing (its cheap if you don't buy anything) and Alexander suddenly was very worried. Claire has left he blurted out. After some discussion on the alarm, he explained that Claire was a student teacher completing her rounds at kinder, and was due to finish - he was worried she had left already. I explained that she wouldn't just finish without saying goodbye - but this wasn't his issue. "We have to give her a present!" he protested. Okay, so this was the issue. Lucky I found this out at Chaddy, what do you want to get her. Oh no mum - we have to MAKE her something.
At home, (after a quick call to the kinder teacher to confirm the information) I decided on a kinder recovery pack with a simple rectangular heat pack for relieving her stress, and some hand and foot lotions that were in the present cupboard. Alexander helped sew and stuff the heat pack and he drew the 'thanks' card himself. I used calico for the inner pocket of the heat pack and sewed six even pockets to it which were filled with linseed and lavender oil. This means it is not to thick or heavy but still does a good job. Then I made a pretty outer cover which is sewn over it without the sections showing. It all came up pretty well really.

Creative Day 17 - Construction 2

Sometimes boys will be boys - and mine are obsessed with building and food and if you can combine the two you have their undivided attention. So, I have been stockpiling toilet roles for a while now, and as a result of a movie night last night (Mamma Mia) there were some left over maltesers - however not very many!

So we built this marble run, and with the lack of marbles in our house used the maltesers which was much more fun. We looked at angles to increase the speed and you only got to eat them if they came all the way through - so there were no gaps either.

I haven't spoken much about the runnings of the house for a while during this creative time, but tonight Alexander was so sweet and caring I have to share it. We were having dinner - sans the big squirrel tonight and we were talking about where he was. He is supporting his sister, who is currently prostesting against the local council who want to push through a motion for a multilane freeway to be built through her home in the country. We discussed protesting, and your right to have a say, but the people that make the decisions may not always agree with you. I was amazed at how much he was understanding. He then went on to say that he didn't want a freeway to go though the farm - it would be too noisy down there. A true fact. We talked that they may have to move, and the sweetest little look came over his face as he suggested he could continue to sleep in the boys room, and his Aunt could have his room, and his uncle (who often stays over for work) could continue to sleep in the lounge. How thoughtful to give up his room, but what a giggle that they have to sleep in separate places!

Creative Challenge - Day 14

Throughout this month we have been talking about colours and seeing art in the everyday. This week in our vegie box delivery was a red cabbage. As we were having a BBQ, it became an artistic coleslaw. Alexander helped cut and grate the ingredients, and loved the patterns from the cabbage. I think this picture may become the basis of something? I loved the ways the colours jarred against each other - which I got to see up close when I was picking out each one of the bottle of peppercorns that spilt into our finished salad!

Creative Challenge- Day 13

Oh- the spring sunshine just draws you outside- pardon the pun. Alexander did some great work at our quarterly kinder working bee, and the littler boys got their artistic fix from a little water painting out on our deck.

And I got mine with a little fabric painting - but its a christmas secret but here's a little hint -

Creative Challenge - Day 12

Why is it that kids love textas so much? We have these giant ones - and while it always starts nicely, they always end up sucking on them.

Creative Challenge - Day 9

Waterpainting-

• Drawing on paper with white crayon
• Using waterpaint to fill in spaces
• Mixing colours on the paper
• Mixing colours on the pallette

(the bottom picture is mine - I had a bit of fun!)