Katie’s Picture Sho…

We really enjoy reading together and I love doing all kinds of crafty arty stuff (especially learning new things) and the boys most enjoy it when I set myself up ‘doing’ something but well prepared for company.  They’ll pop by to see what I’m doing ask a few questions and sometimes potter off for a bit, then someone will ask if they can have a go or could I show them or simply set themselves up alongside me.  It’s something I want to do more of but also an exercise in helping a little but stepping back too.

We really enjoyed sharing Katie’s Picture show and have a few more Katie art books around and as we were chatting and watching TV this afternoon I was mulling over some of the things we could do….I thought I’d get them down before the ideas skipped off!

In this book Katie goes into 5 pictures:

The Hay Wain-Constable

Madame Moitessier Seated-Ingres

Les Parpluies-Renoir

Tropical storm with a Tiger-Rousseau

Dynamic Suprematism- Malevich

So, painting or drawing in the style of an artist is actually hard and can be pretty demoralising if you don’t match up….also there are a lot of skills that you need to be able to paint/reproduce the style etc. plus it’s soooo obvious and it’s good to explore skills and media and things that are a bit more than just paint a picture like….

My Brain dump of ideas

The Hay Wain

painting clouds

white puffy clouds on a blue sky using watercolours, lifting using kitchen roll, adding grey shadows underneath

storm clouds-wet in wet, mixing grey adding yellow ochre the art of stopping!

Different cloud types (geog/weather link?)

painting rain

drawing/painting trees (we have done this recently using water colours, inks and  oil pastels.

Some basic landscape vocab like horizon,  perspective, splitting into 1/3s, foreground/background

Painting water

Making apple pie (yummy!)

I have a tapestry upstairs from yonks ago that I never did that is very similar in style

Weaving on a card loom to create a ‘landscape’ reflecting the colours of the picture.

Take a print out, cut into small pieces, mix shades/tints to match the colours used by constable-this could be water colours, acrylics, oils, water colour pencils.

A study of wheels-like the wheel on the wagon but go out and ‘spot wheels, photograph (visit Blists hill etc.) find lots.  Choose some interesting wheels to draw, work in pencil/charcoal.

Why does the horses saddle stand out?  Look at colours opposite on the colour wheel (redo colour wheel for OT/Ben).  Reinforce primary/secondary.  Mix hues of red/green alternating circles.

What part of the river’s course are they on, what would have gone before/after link to sticks in the water or the little boat moored up

How does Constable create the feeling of depth-look at comparative size of trees in distance, level of detail, less intense colours

Reproduce small squares of picture, these could be the same size as the cut up original then be inserted instead of the print out so we’d still have a whole picture without having to do every square.

 

Madame Moitessier

Look at flower pattern and create own

Draw self portrait in a mirror

Study of hands and wrists

Mixing flesh colours-take range of different photos/pictures/prints/catalogue pagers etc. and mix flesh tones using watercolour/acrylics

We could look at portraiture, face and body proportions, using viewers, transparent grids, seeing the lines/contours

Make beaded bracelets

Eating cream cakes (maybe making and drawing some too!)

Batik flowers

 

Les Parpluies

Colour mixing shades/hues/tints of blues

Look at contrasting colour on colour wheel

Again portraiture/face/proportions

soundscape

Who is the woman without the umbrella?

Draw umbrellas

What’s in the basket?

 

Surprised/Tiger in a Storm

Greens-colour mixing in different media

Photo different greens, collect examples and mix paints/inks etc. to match

Look at how the artist created effect of wind/storm

Depth in painting what happens to objects further away?

Look at the different leaf shapes-create print block and take prints

Draw tiger and take prints-using glue/foil/ink brayer etc.

Batik tiger

 

Dynamic Suprematism

Cutting/collage geometric straight edged shapes/symbols

Look at how to balance, use of overlapping, colours

try drawing or stitching/applique a picture in similar style

Introduce idea of non-representational art-link to math shape and space and have a series of  ‘rules’ of what to include (parallel lines, intersecting, bisecting at right angles, acute, obtuse, etc.)

How to use a compass to draw circles

 

Look at other examples by these artists, sort into similar groups, ID paintings by these artist, visit the Nat Gallery and see these piccies (and the Tate)

Well at least that’s some of the ideas!

WHat have we been up to….?

Well, today we’ve been doing some art based stuff.  Tig and I took part of a Henri Rousseau picture, enlarged it and re-sketched onto a square of water colour paper and then used water colour pencils to create the different greens, yellows, oranges and occasional pink.  It worked pretty well.  TIg completed one square and was really pleased with the end result,there’s one left before we have the whole tiger.

You can do this with any piccy, just be sure to split it into squares and sue squares of paper to draw your copy on.  It would probably have been easier if the picture had been split into smaller parts as we would have been able to really focus on the lines and shapes without seeing/knowing what we were drawing-it really helps and stops your brain interfering!

This is the piccy so far:

Ot and B popped in and out and did some playing building houses and dens with blocks and different construction stuff.

We read a Katie Morag book, cuddled on the settee and talked about what we thoguht we’d find, the colours, our favourites.  Katie visits the National Gallery and is amazingly able to go into the pictures.  Which sparked a discussion about the predominate colours with Tig and why we liked certain parts adn didn’t like otehrs. 

B and Ot were experimenting with creating wet in wet pictures, colours washes and in Ot’s case skys and seas whilst Tig and I worked on mixing lots of different shades of green.  I tried a random geomettric patchwork which I sketched and Tig used ever increasing circles….

In between all of this we watched some of Big Al, some Ice age amongst other things.  Ot is really struggling with listening and not talking AT you at the moment (he is also heading for a growth spurt).  There were some Lego heroes being built, some playing in the garden in between the rain, more house building, chocolate eating and TV watching too.

Otherwise this week we’ve done a bit of game playing, made jelly worms using long chain polymers.  We didn’t have the kits but we made up our own Sodium Alginate and Calcium Chloride solutions.  It was great fun BUT it smelled like barf!

The sodium alginate changes from a liquid to a solid the as it hits the calcium chloride solution  and long polymer chains link together because of the calcium in the solution;  Scientists call this “cross-linking.  the Ca 2+ ions replace the NA+ ions and this links the alginate molecules together.  The new Alginate chain linked by the Ca 2+ is insoluble in Calcium chloride solution hence you get the solid jelly worms.  When you press inside though it is all liquidy-we are guessing that that would still be the alginate solution and that the outside reacts and forms a skin but I have yet to find out if we are right.  Some interesting discussions over breakfast though!

We used the Mento geyser that we got with this kit…to hysterical results; take one fell over, take 2 went all over the kitchen (Aunty E was trying to figure out why the pin was stiff whilst I was loading the mentos…oh the importance of communication), take 3 went slightly wonky and sprayed really high-over next door….we were all hysterical.

We had great fun at Tuesday club malkign swords, solving mysteries, making bracelets, necklaces and keyrings, eating cake, ice lols adn hunting in the garden.

Here’s a few more piccys!

Playing Bites and Pieces

Cutting practice…

Building boats,testing their load capacity, sinking, modifying….

Counting out knives and forks…

Balancing, tag games and more in the sun…

Sorting and classifying

Finding sounds in the foam…

“Tig, tell me everything you can about these three numbers….”

Puzzles…

Free the pirates from their icy prison using only 2 tools, salt and water…

Fathers’ day…

Computing…

Tig’s herbs…

Half Term

Well, it was wet, very wet so our plans to go away camping didn’t come to much nor did the garage clearing go as far as we wanted but we can now get in and all of the cardboard is cleared!  The boys enjoyed a couple of impromptu visits from Nanny and Granddad and Uncle Photo plus lots of game playing with dad.  We had some animated movie making, some mini books about invertebrates, batman playing. 

We took aunty E for pizza and bowling for her b’day and we went to Birches valley (building dens was fun as always!) and then strawberry picking at Essington on Sunday. 

There was lots of computer playing, Granddad F came over to visit on Saturday and became addicted to our newest ipad download Catapult king……Ben and he sat on the sofa for ages :0)

Perhaps the biggest thing in the week was a discussion about the formal learning….we try to do certain things each day by about 9:30 (everyone is up at 6) then do our own thing, go out, play build, mosaic with some suggestions from me….kind of a balance between autonomous and structured I guess.  however, of late, it has been taking longer to get the stuff done and has been more and more fraught.  DH suggested we are in need of a change….I have been worried for a bit that our interactions (mine and the kids0 are becoming more negative as I feel I *have* to get the more formal bits done.  We’re not talking A-level maths or anything that mad, simply:

a bit of handwriting (say between 4 and 20 words), Sometimes replaced by a minibook for lapbooks

a section (or less) of the maths books we’re using-they’re actually a decent progression and have a logical approach,

spelling-online game with a review test at the end,

blog something –sometimes replaced by mini books for a lapbook

some whizz maths-between 1 and 3 depending on what book maths we do.)

Last week was hell.  Not an exaggeration honest.  The fun had totally gone and I think dh seeing made him realise I wasn’t exaggerating.  We had all reached our limit and it just wasn’t working-for anyone.

Cue ‘THE’ conversation.  We need to get the fun back!  Yes we both still think the basic stuff is important and relevant but more important is our relationship with the kids-mine especially as it is me who does the day to day stuff….and the one who is getting more negative responses!

So one of the problems was doing it all together, another was they were not enjoying it not the content but because of their perception of what it was iyswim.  So how do you do this…..basic stuff, positively, choice, fun, not panic because they can’t do x,y,z and show no interest in it yet you…honestly who knows!

We talked together and agreed that it was better when they had a grown up to themselves so I am taking them aside for 10 minutes and they do something with me….more games (and winning) for Ot, more conversations and time for Tig, focus on reading for B….if nothing else the atmosphere is less fraught although I have internal panic as Ot just wants to sit in front of a screen…..will he ever stop playing roblox!?!

hang on, isn’t taking them aside doing the same stuff just the same-well it would be if we were doing the same stuff but sneakily I am looking at the key skill/knowledge and creating games or challenges (with less writing) building in an overload of success and also just taking the time to play games together. I’ve had a chunk of games waiting to be laminated and used (like bites and pieces some great free downloads here!) which are fun, hit lots of observational skills, are interesting etc. so I have taken the time out to get these ready to use……

Cool Game!!!

Ok so this providing lots of fun for 2 of 3 (Tig really wants to go for a walk so B, Ot and I HAVE to stop….have a look and have some fun creating a cell and fighting off viruses (it really is fun!).

Noisy Jelly

Surfing for jelly moulds led me to this.  the boys were entranced with the video.  Is it crazy that now we want to make one/some?  We have no idea where to start but will be looking….any tips?