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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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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Graffiti Inspired Bottles

Years ago, one of my school assignments involved creating a collection of textile designs, and painting one of them on a household object. I chose a wine bottle because it was readily available, and surely considered a household object in France! This time, I thought a graffiti theme would be fun, and included the image above to show you my source of inspiration, which I found painted on a garage door. If lurking about back alleys isn’t your thing, the internet is filled with great images for you to consider using.

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Vinyl Stickers

Children love stickers, and making their own is a really cool way of showing off their ideas. When my son was a little guy he had such a passion for them, they covered his closet door as high as he could reach. The fun part came when he grew up and wanted them removed. So choose carefully where you’d like to place these little designs, so you can avoid reaching for the heat gun and sand paper in a few years.

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Year Two…

Looking fabulously surprised by my two years of blogging, aren’t they? Well settle down boys, it’s not so hard to understand why this has gone on for so long. Quite simply, blogging is fun and fulfilling, which is what drives most people to do it in the first place. So happy anniversary to moi, and a big thank you to those who take the time to visit, comment and follow. I really do appreciate it!

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Foil Drawings

I came across this unique idea on a great blog called Make It A Wonderful Life. It was simply too cool not to try out, and the great directions ensured everything worked out well. The end result reminds me of the old tin ceiling tiles which were popular in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, during the Victorian era. While there aren’t so many vintage ones left, there are plenty of modern versions you can view on the internet.

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Resist Painting With Rubber Cement

Don’t you love ambiguous sentences. When this one accidentally happened, I started looking them up on the internet and had a really good laugh. Here were some of the better ones: The children are ready for eating. Milk drinkers are turning to powder. Stolen painting found by tree. Iraqi head seeks arms. Now back to rubber cement…

It’s always great when you can look beyond a product’s original purpose, and see it’s potential in other areas. Thanks to a couple of great websites (The Artful Parent and The Disarranged Studio), I now know rubber cement is much more than just an adhesive I like to pick at and pull once it’s dried and done its job.  It can be used as a resist, allowing you to create batik-like drawings, which magically reveal themselves once the rubber cement is removed.

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Torn Paper Collage

Torn paper collages are made using small pieces of paper which are glued onto a surface to create an image. In this case we’ll be making portraits using old magazines, which will provide the colourful palette you’ll need. You can also go black and white by using newspapers. The image children select for inspiration will help with some basic direction in colours, composition and proportions, but they shouldn’t expect to duplicate it. It’s simply to provide a starting point, which they can then take in any direction.

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Doodling Lucy

They say Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds was inspired by a drawing John Lennon’s son made at school. There are also those who insist other things were on John’s mind when he wrote the lyrics, but the fact remains it’s a wonderful song. It was released in 1967 on the Beatle’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, which became the most successful selling album in the 1960’s. Its dream-like lyrics and powerful imagery makes it perfect for getting lost in some doodling.

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Movies, Artists, Madness

After all your hard work entertaining, cooking and putting up with varying levels of dysfunction and joy, you’ll surely be in need of a much deserved break. Here’s a list of some of my favourite films about artists, which you may want to watch as an antidote to all the holiday excess. Be prepared to be taken on some passionate and turbulent journeys which explore the transformative power of art, and often seem to end in some form of madness. What is it with art and madness anyway? Not all of these are suitable for children, but some are definitely worth sharing with them. Happy viewing and Happy Holidays! Continue reading

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