Artober - Colour Mixing

Not too long ago my darling little boys were struggling with naming colours and now we are looking at how they mix.
We used jars of water and added drops of food colour of the primarys. Then in a saucer we poured a little of one colour and added the second to watch the magic of the mix
The colours were like magic and the kids loved it. We kept the jars of the primaries behind those new colours to remind us where they came from
Initially we tried painting on card then on paper, but found the best results on absorbent paper towel using a cotton bud.

Artober - Bubbles

I know its a stretch but we were looking at different shapes of blowers and how the bubbles come out the same and the way the colours dance across the skin of the sphere.

Artober - Still life

Paint. paper and vase of flowers - Go!

I didn't catch benji before he went too far...

Artober - Sand Sculpture

: big squirrel home early - packed bikes and off for a ride

: lovely ride along the beach

: kids paddling in the water

: sculpting sand and collecting shells

Artober- cat in the Hat

When Xandy was 4 we had a month of art in the september and now with the twins I am trying to have the same focus again - but now its October. As a comparison, they are much more prolific in their art production at kinder than he was - but he talked (and still does) way more. Different kids really!! Either way - I am going to try to do something creative with the boys every day and mid school holidays it seems like an even bigger challenge.

Today was grand final day - my team were playing but didn't win. I wont dwell on that. Spencer has been fascinated by the cat in the hat and just needed to dress up like him. He had been running around with a broom handle as a tail. Not very safe I know. To substitute we made one out of an old pair of tights stuffed with newspaper. Socks on his hands were gloves and socks on the feet sufficed - but he had to have a hat.

Quick trip to get some card and ta-da cat in the hat. He wore it all day and was so impressed with himself.

He was happy - the bigger boys watched the footy and mum and I sewed which was very productive.

Self Portrait

At the gallery shop yesterday I picked up this little goody. It is a box of A5 sized cards featuring art works from the Tate gallery. With each of the artworks is an activiy or exercise related to the artwork.

This is theboth sides of one of the cards. Alexander had a look and he chose out a self portrait one. The idea was to print out a picture of yourself and then alter it. I was out of one ink colour (dont you hate that!!) so we couldn't do that. I then discovered he had done this.

All on his own - he had found the window crayons and drawn this on his mirror.

On the topic of self portraits, these are versions of the themselves the twin have done - they were on sale at our disco.

Spencer

Benji

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 24

We went to the zoo today. It is a funny place. The kids seem to enjoy it and we focussed a lot on the patterns that we could see- the zebra stripes, the tiger stripes, the spots on the giraffe - even the rings in the wooden logs around the place. The last place we stopped was the gorillas.
They were sitting in their area - which is all set up to look and 'feel' natural. The zoo is currently undergoing upgrades to increase the natural-ness of the animals habitat and the elephant and orangatang exhibits are great, but back to the gorillas.
We first stopped at the top and could just see one but they were fairly far away, so we wandered around a little further to a lower section that was glass, on their ground level. There was a gorilla there - looking very pensive. There were two other people in this area so it was quiet and we were simply observing. He was looking at us and we were looking at him, and we were all still. Then he started to move - pose in fact, reclining on one elbow, which got a great reaction from us, looking, pointing, taking photos. This spurred him on more, with him sticking his tongue out- the crowd started to grow as did the noise of appreciation. Then another gorilla came racing down and banging on the windows - to gain our attention or surprise us, not sure but both were true. Then this gorilla proceeded to steal the show. This is my issue. On one hand it is great to have a place where you can go and learn, see the animals etc etc, but on the other hand, there is no chance to see them as they would be in the wild- basically because it is not the wild and those animals couldn't go to the wild. Alexander and I talked about it on the way to the beach - imagine if your loungeroom windows were a viewing deck for other people, or even gorillas. Would you act differently for them?