Monthly Archives: March 2012

March 27, 2012 · 2:31 pm

ArtsBeat: Yayoi Kusama The Polka Dot Princess

Yayoi Kusama at the Sepentine Gallery in 2000 with her work Dots Obsession. Image: http://www.guardian.ca.uk

The conceptual artist Yayoi Kusama has been painting dots and nets since the age of ten. The environments she creates are stunning, menacing, and overwhelming, providing a brief glimpse of the world she inhabits – one filled with hallucinations and visions. Her art has allowed her to manage and express her obsessive visions, and has been recognized with numerous awards and retrospectives. At the age of 80, she continues to produce work in her studio by day, returning to the mental institution where she chooses to reside by night.

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Dioramas

It’s not surprising children love to make dioramas. It remains one of those classic school projects, where they can dream up a moment in time, an imaginary miniature world, filled with tiny characters and decor, all contained in a little box.

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Tagged as 3D scenes, arts and crafts for kids, assemblages, crafts, diorama, DIY, garden dioramas, miniatures, miniaturization, shadow boxes

March 19, 2012 · 8:36 pm

ArtsBeat: Art History Simplified

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Tagged as art, Art History Cheat Sheet, Art History simplified, art humour, artists, artsbeat, Patron of The Arts

March 15, 2012 · 1:35 pm

Painted Eggs

Painting eggs is a popular activity and tradition this time of year, and there’s no shortage of styles to explore. Think of intricate and detailed designs on Ukrainian Easter eggs, experiments with marbling, speckling and layering, wonderful little characters emerging from creative minds, and of course the unexpected. Artists provide inspiration for so many things, so why not for eggs?

The American artist, Roy Lichtenstein, was born in 1923 and was well known for his work in the Pop Art style. For a number of years, he adapted images from comic books and turned them into large-scale paintings filled with thick black outlines, primary colours, and lots and lots of dots. Dots, comics, and bright colours? Sounds like a winning combination to entice children into a little egg painting.

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Filed under Artists, eggs, painting, Pop Art, Roy Lichtenstein

Tagged as artist inspired painted eggs, arts and crafts for kids, comic book style painting on eggs, DIY, Easter crafts, easter eggs, Lichtenstein eggs, painted eggs, painting comics, Pop Art style eggs, Roy Lichtenstein

March 12, 2012 · 8:38 pm

ArtsBeat: The Art Of Clumsiness

Dionysus, 438-432 B.C.Image: British Museum, London

When an ancient sculpture has managed to survive a few thousand years, like our favourite god of wine and merriment, a missing limb or penis is par for the course. But what about damage caused by general clumsiness? According to Right Diagnosis, there are precisely 408 possible medical conditions causing clumsiness, like premenstrual syndrome, puberty, and impulsive behaviour “especially in children seen running all over the place.” Who knew? Here are some tragic acts of clumsiness to amuse/depress you:

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Textured Painting

Jean Dubuffet was a French artist whose work included paintings and large-scale sculptures. He used a range of unconventional materials such as sand, pebbles, and butterfly wings, and was often inspired by found objects, patterns, and textures. He was also drawn to the powerful work created by children, prisoners and psychiatric patients, who had received no formal training in art. This prompted him to coin the term Art Brut to refer to their art, which was filled with a spontaneity and freedom he greatly admired and was inspired by. Let’s celebrate that spontaneity and freedom children have by playing with plaster and creating some textures.

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Tagged as arts and crafts for kids, DIY, Jean Dubuffet, Lever de Lune Aux Fantômes, Plaster of Paris art, texture, texture art

March 1, 2012 · 12:29 pm

Sculpting In Plaster

“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.” Michelangelo

Plaster of Paris makes it easy to create small blocks of “stone” that little sculptors can carve. It’s also a wonderful way to have children imagine a three dimensional shape inside a block, and bring it to life. As they carve and scratch away at the plaster, they’ll see their idea slowly emerge and evolve.

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Tagged as arts and crafts, Michelangelo quote, plaster of paris, sculpting for kids, sculpting in plaster, sculpture