October 1, 2010 · 11:43 am

Headshrinking

And so begins the month-long journey towards the most splendid holiday of the year. You’ll find shrunken apple heads perfect for turning your home into a Halloween house of horrors, and a big hit with kids. Although I don’t remember making them as a child, I certainly recall coming across the real thing in National Geographic, which routinely featured stories about indigenous peoples and their curious practice of decapitating enemies and collecting their heads as trophies. I propose we begin the festivities with a little headshrinking of our own. This sort of thing takes time, so lets get started.

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September 24, 2010 · 11:38 am

Self Portraits With A Twist

The illustrator and cartoonist Michael Mathias Prechtl made this poster for the G. Schirmer music store in New York, back in 1974. When I recently saw it in an old graphic design book, I realized it was time to spice up the traditional self portrait. If Beethoven could have his head exploding with women and music, children could also have things they enjoy tumbling out of their head. Imagine the possibilities.

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September 17, 2010 · 10:47 am

Nuit Blanche

Fog Installation by Fujiko Nakaya. Toronto 2006. Photo: http://www.blogto.com/arts/2006/10/nuit_blanche_fog_in_toronto_a_slippery_hit

My first Nuit Blanche experience was a rainy evening in 2006. I walked along Philosopher’s Walk with my two children in tow to experience Fujiko Nakaya’s eerie fog installation. Pockets of thick fog swallowed up the crowd, and proved a little too unsettling for my ten year old son who felt the need to rescue his five year old sister. He latched on to her coattails, causing her to howl with indignation “Let go!” When he finally did, she promptly fell in the mud. We fled to the Gardiner Museum’s washroom for an emergency scrub down, and once the wailing subsided, continued on what turned out to be a magical evening. We were hooked, and haven’t missed one since.

Nuit Blanche returns on October 2nd, bringing us another fantastic all-night celebration of the arts. Participating cities throughout the world will come alive from dusk till dawn, enticing us to explore contemporary art in a fun and welcoming environment. This free event began in Paris in 2002, with the purpose of making art accessible to everyone. The public was invited to visit museums, galleries, cultural institutions, and temporary exhibitions set up in public spaces. Every year, new cities are invited to join this festival which now spans the globe. Toronto will be celebrating its 5th year, while New York City will be joining in for the first time.

Since its inception in 2006, Toronto’s Nuit Blanche has expanded well beyond its humble beginnings, so I would strongly recommend visiting the website to plan your evening. If you are heading out with children, it makes sense to choose some events that will appeal to them, and dodge some of the ones that are inappropriate. I can’t encourage you enough to take your children. They’ll love you for being able to playfully roam the streets of their city at night, participate in some of the interactive installations, pick up glow sticks along the way, be totally amazed and inspired by some of the things they see, and downright puzzled by others. It’s a great evening with fun to be had by all. Hook up with your friends and don’t forget your camera.

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September 10, 2010 · 12:30 pm

Soundscapes

Composition 6 by Wassily Kandinsky. 1913. Image: http://www.chss.montclair.edu/~nielsenw/dada.html

“Lend your ears to music, open your eyes to painting, and …stop thinking! Just ask yourself whether the work has enabled you to “walk about” into a hitherto unknown world. If the answer is yes, what more do you want?” Wassily Kandinsky 1910

Music accompanies us throughout the day while we are driving, playing, or walking along with our ipods. It can create a peaceful ambience as we go about our reading, or stir powerful emotions begging to be expressed in some way, which brings us to this project. There is a wonderful connection between music and visual art which has been examined by many artists. Russian-born Wassily Kandinsky was fascinated by this relationship and explored it in many of his paintings. He is credited with creating the first truly abstract paintings like the one above, and is suspected of possibly being a synaesthete, having the ability to see sound as colour and vice versa. This project gives children the opportunity to think about the emotions music awakens, and how they choose to paint the sounds they hear.

Ten year old Sophie painted this while listening to E.S.T.’s ‘From Gagarin’s Point of View‘

“In the beginning it was relaxing like a day at the beach, so I made some blue and white waves. In the middle of the song it turned darker, so I decided to paint the other half with black and white which also turned to grey. At the end, both sides come together.”

Sophie painted this while listening to the 4th movement of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony.

“You may think it’s a pink background with a bunch of colourful splatters on it, but think again. The beginning is not too angry so I thought dark pink was perfect. To represent the anger and violence, I decided to do some black splatters, but then it became more joyful so I chose colour – like a war between colours. I chose to make splatters to represent the energy and anger.”

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September 6, 2010 · 9:47 am

Garden Art

Earlier this summer, I suggested spending some time hunting and gathering outdoors to collect items for future arts and crafts projects. This is one of those projects where you’ll be able to make use of your treasures. Many of your gathered items are typically found on the ground, only to be stepped on or tossed in the compost pile, so you may be surprised to see how this blending of nature and imagination can create some really interesting garden art.

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September 2, 2010 · 1:27 pm

Making Mistakes

Detail from The Son of Man by René Magritte. Image:http://bertc.com/g9/magritte16.htm

Maybe Magritte just couldn’t get the nose right and gave up. In the world of arts and crafts, mistakes will happen. Some will be beyond repair and require moving on (sniff, sniff), like incorrect folds in your origami paper. Learn from your error, grab another sheet and start again. Other mistakes can be fixed with problem solving and patience. And sometimes you can build on your mistakes, which can lead to wonderful, unexpected outcomes. A willingness to explore and make mistakes can also teach you a tremendous amount about art supplies and materials; about the best ways to use them and unexpected ways of applying and combining them.

When making things with children, they can easily become frustrated if their creation does not meet their expectations. And rightly so. We all know the disappointment of something not working out as planned. Opening their minds up to other possibilities will help teary-eyed and demoralized little artists to look beyond their initial plan, and see that there are alternatives to destroying their work and stomping away. Mistakes can be happy ones. Accidental drips and blobs of paint can give rise to new creatures or intriguing abstracts and backgrounds. That “perfect” outline that didn’t quite happen can be transformed with varying thicknesses, adding more interest and movement. Unintended colours can be welcomed to stretch the imagination, or simply painted over and changed. Reassure children that even great artists made mistakes and chose to learn from them and work with them, or simply start over.

Finally, my apologies to Magritte, whose Son of Man is a fine example of Surrealist art. I’m sure he had no difficulty painting noses.

Detail from The Man In The Bowler Hat by René Magritte. Image: http://www.surrealist.com

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”
Scott Adams

“Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary: rationalize them, understand them thoroughly. After that, it will be possible for you to sublimate them.” Salvador Dali

“It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent.” Vincent Van Gogh

References: http://quote.robertgenn.com/getquotes.php?catid=192

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August 29, 2010 · 4:39 pm

Mandalas

Mandalas, Sanskrit for circle, are concentric diagrams having spiritual significance in both the Buddhist and Hindu religions. They can be seen in the sacred art of both these traditions, and are used in meditation as a spiritual teaching tool and a way of focussing one’s attention. For children and adults alike, it’s a wonderful relaxing exercise in concentration, and it all begins with a dot.

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August 25, 2010 · 2:06 pm

Funky Felt Balls

These felt balls were a lot of fun to make and became somewhat addictive. Colour combinations and pattern ideas are endless, so you can imagine how difficult it is to stop yourself unless you finally run out of wool, or simply can’t stand having prune fingers a minute longer.

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August 21, 2010 · 3:34 pm

To Dye For

It was after seeing the rather tragic and touching film, Seraphine, that I was inspired to try my hand at making natural dyes. The film is a true story about the self-taught French artist Seraphine Louis who lived in poverty, working as a housekeeper by day and painting by night. Her work was accidentally discovered by a German art collector, and through his support, she received some level of success as a naive painter until madness seemed to take over, with Séraphine ending her days in an asylum. She made all of her pigments using a variety of available ingredients including clay and animal blood. While she required pigments for her paintings, we’ll keep it simple, bloodless, and safe for kids by making some dyes to colour wool batting or wool roving. This will in turn be used to make some really neat felt balls in my next post.

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August 16, 2010 · 1:17 pm

Museum Visits With Children

Making amends with ice cream in Paris.

A wonderful part of traveling involves visiting museums, art galleries, and historical sites. My children know that any whining to the contrary will only lead to one of my preachy, long winded explanations about how these places offer a way of delving into the history of another culture, and a myriad of other benefits. This is usually met with glazed eyes rolling about their little sockets, and eventual, grudging compliance. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not standing there with a whip and guide book expecting my kids to recite dates at the end of their visit, I’m just hoping for a positive attitude and an openness to experiencing something new. And while this happens more often because they are older, for many kids, places like museums are synonymous with slow motion walking through endless spaces looking at old artifacts that can’t be touched. Where’s the fun?

The solution? Change your expectations so your children won’t look at these visits with dread. I now allow my kids to set the pace and roam freely, hoping their self-directed tour will encourage a little more curiosity because it’s on their terms. They don’t have to look at every single thing in every single room. They don’t even have to read the information cards posted on the walls. If they want to walk around with us and are inspired to talk about what they see, they can. If they choose to go through at break-neck speed, ending up at the gift shop, that’s fine too. I know these visits will somehow inspire them and enrich their lives. Persevere I say, because despite the scowls and expressions of pain, there are breakthrough moments that put a smile on your face, and assure you that it’s all worthwhile.

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