Some interesting art has been made using buttons. Ran Hwang creates beautiful wall installations with them; Lisa Kokin makes pixilated compositions by stitching them together; Jane Perkins likes to transform found objects like buttons into something new; and Shishua Vang works them into her paintings. We’ll also be making some cool button art, filled with bright colours and interesting textures. Continue reading
Sand casting is such a great idea, and has become a popular beach activity for kids. Tons of blogs have been showing great examples of hands, feet, shells, you name it. But what really caught my eye was a YouTube video by Gary Einloth. I liked his idea of using tools to prod deeply into the sand, and thought some interesting miniature landscapes could be created using this method.
Stolen Pieces by Eva & Franco Mattes. Photo: http://www.thedailybeast.com
Eva and Franco Mattes did just that. The ballsy, Brooklyn-based Italian artists spent 2 years stealing fragments from some really famous works of art by Kandinsky, Duchamp and Koons, among others. Continue reading
Filed under ArtsBeat
Children often have small treasures they like to collect, and empty candy tins, or any tins for that matter, are a perfect place to store them. Spending some time decorating the inside is a great way to personalize them and make them special.
Filed under tins
Butt naked visitors at The MCA Australia. Photo: nytimes.com
Clothing can be so cumbersome when the warm weather hits, don’t you think? At The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, artist Stuart Ringholt is offering naked tours as a way of exploring the themes of fear and embarrassment. With that kind of distraction, I’m wondering how much attention the art would get. Focus people, focus!
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I couldn’t resist sharing this amazing line drawing technique demonstrated by Ted Edinger on his website Art With Mr. E. The method is fairly simple for children to do, and the results are very effective at demonstrating the wonders of optical illusions. Continue reading
Filed under Art Movements, doodling, drawing, Op Art
Camouflage occurs when animals are either hard to see, like a black panther lurking in the night looking for its prey, or when they blend in with their environment by resembling something else, like a stick insect looking like a twig. When animals are hard to see, it increases their chance of survival. Children can explore this idea by making some background patterns and a few creatures of their own. Continue reading
Filed under animals/creatures, Art and Nature, drawing
Gross Reality by Mason Mummery
Every year, I look forward to seeing OCAD University’s graduate exhibition. On display is work from over 500 graduating students, from twelve undergraduate programs. I always leave inspired by what I’ve seen, and filled with ideas that I look forward to exploring with children. Here are a few things I loved. Continue reading
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This idea was inspired by the work of London street artist Slinkachu. Slinkachu finds snails roaming the streets of London, adds a little non-toxic paint to their shells, and returns them to their urban habitats unharmed and fully decorated. It’s all part of his rather humorous Inner City Snail Project where he pokes fun at the idea of “society’s relentless desire to appropriate every available inch of the cityscape for advertising, signage and even illegal graffiti.”
I’m not fond of snails because, well, they’re so slimy. And while I did eat them as a child, I’m working hard on trying to repress that memory. That means painting on a real, live snail is never going to happen. Children, however, are a fearless, inquisitive bunch. So if you happen to have some non-toxic paint and a few available snails in your backyard, it would be the coolest thing to paint them and watch them go about their business. I’ll just stick to the vacant shells. Continue reading
Filed under animals/creatures, Art and Nature, painting
Mummy by Ben Campbell. Photo: now.msn.com/now/0425-mcdonalds-mummy.aspx
There are many interesting tales about McDonald’s food and its inability to decay in a normal fashion. Enter artist Ben Campbell, who has been busy exploring the connection between modern society and ancient Egypt, and our ongoing quest for eternal life. Continue reading
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