Children's Art Ideas

Each Tuesday I run an art, craft and messy play workshop for preschool age children in Ruislip, and so each week I have to come up with new preschooler art ideas.

Starting today I'm going to blog one of our activities each Tuesday. They are always simple and use things you'll probably have lying around at home, so hopefully this will build up into a good rainy day ideas bank!

So today's idea is sponge sculptures, using sponge scourers and flat sponges (which you can get get packs of for pennies in the supermarket). Just cut up the sponges into different sized blocks and shapes, and glue together using runny white craft glue. Your children could make tall towers, boats, even whole villages!

Have fun!

Colouring in

Colouring in is terrifying to me.
Colouring with layers of tissue paper, or fabric or thread I can handle, but paints, pens and pencils? No way!
All my drawings so far have been in black/grey pencil or pen. If I'm to progress with my drawing though, I really need to get to grips with colour, so over the past couple of days I've forced myself to colour things in.
I'm starting with some nice colouring pencils, to ease myself into it. Paint is the next step I suppose, but that is too much for the moment.
So I've gone from this -

to this - 

I've got a long way to go before I'm confident in using colour, but I'm on my way there.

What happens in tech...

I've spent the past few days in technical and dress rehearsals for 'The Conquering Hero' at Orange Tree Theatre. 

This means very long days, far too much tea and cake, and a lot of sitting around punctuated by flurries of manic activity.

So I've been doing a lot of doodling....

It's show time again

I'm back at Orange Tree Theatre for a few days, but it's not a fancy Muswell Hill kitchen this time. This time we're going back to the First World War for 'The Conquering Hero' by Allan Monkhouse.
The costumes are gorgeous, and there's an awful lot of them. A cast of eleven, most of whom have three costumes each = some very full dressing rooms!
We start the tech and dress tomorrow, and the show opens on Wednesday. It's a really great play, I watched a run through on Friday and the writing and acting are spot on.
I'm really excited to see them all in costume tomorrow, it makes a huge difference when it's a period play.

An itty bitty papercut

Hello birdie

Puppet Making at Little Willows

All was calm.

I was wearing my brand new blue suede shoes.

Then the children arrived!

We stuck.

We squidged.

We sculpted.

We created some amazing rod puppets.

With fabulous clothes,

and crazy coloured skin,

cute faces,

and BIG eyes!

Each one was different,

and the children amazed me as ever with their creativity.

Hopefully we'll make more soon!

Two mornings of workshops with ten year olds

Yesterday was the first of my Easter holiday workshops, we started with knitting and having never knitted before they managed to cast on, knit, purl and cast off. All in 3 hours! I was seriously impressed.

We even had some time for making some pom poms and using them to create funny creatures with the knitting.

Today we did some hand sewing, we made corsages and bags and purses, they're such a brilliant group. I was very impressed with their concentration and neat stitches.

Next week it's puppet making time!

Another papercut from start to finish...

This one will be a first anniversry present, I started with this photo and a quote from one of the readings at their wedding. The finished piece is just slightly smaller than A5 size, and definitely the fiddliest one I've done yet!

A workshop with Julie Arkell

I was very very excited a couple of months ago when I spotted a listing in Craft Magazine for a solo show of Julie Arkell's work. I rang up the gallery straight away and asked if any talks or workshops were planned, it turned out they were running a brooch making workshop for just £20. I booked it there and then - before they'd even put it on the website!

I'm a big fan of Julie's work, it's charming, funny, a little dark in places, and best of all it's mostly made with paper and glue.

The only problem was the workshop and exhibition were in Liverpool, which meant a very early start, on the Sunday that the clocks changed which made it feel even earlier!

I arrived at Bluecoat Display Centre a little bleary, and was stunned at what a lovely place it is, a real community arts space. It's been there since the 50s and is fabulous, I'd LOVE a place like it near me!

And the exhibition of Julie Arkell's work was just utterly charming.

After a little talk by Julie we went to the workshops space to get making. 

The brooches were in a style inspired by one Julie had seen at the Imperial War Museum, and were made in a wonderfully simple and effective way. 

We cut a shape from cardboard, wrapped it with wool, then stitched fabric to it. Then embellishments could be added.

The results were really lovely.

With the workshop over I headed back for another wander around the exhibition, and found what is my favourite little bit of Arkell embroidery so far - 

I throughly recommend paying the Bluecoat a visit!