Two more days to let me know about the swatch-swop! Today is an exhibition of my little artist's buildings as a wrap-up of the 2014 artwork by the girls. Here are the final surprise paintings for their mum and dad. I love the way both little artists have interpreted their home as very large. You can see how they copied the windows, but also got a bit confused with the front door and steps leading up to it. The bricks were a lot of work. When you are very small and the sheet of paper is big … [Read more...]
Happy New Year for 2015
Happy New Year! I hope you all feel resplendent and were really spoilt this Christmas. Don't forget the swatch swop! I need to know that you are taking part by 5th January and I need the swatches by the 15th January. All the instructions can be found by doing "search" top right hand corner and typing in 'swatch-swop'. (note spelling and hyphen). I have not yet caught up with my usual new Year stock-taking so in the meantime, I'll tell you about the house portraits my two little granddaughters … [Read more...]
Izzy & Hattie complete their paintings
You can see how Izzy and Hattie have done the steps down into the garden. Then one of them spotted the wash-line and drew it in. I love the finger print apples. The trees were just in pencil, so back at home I showed them how to draw the outline in walnut ink with a pen, then paint with water to make the ink flow. I suspect that Izzy takes after her granny because she likes to do things the other way around to instructions, so she first painted with water and then draw the outlines. Less … [Read more...]
Art in the apple orchards
I was in Sweden and had all four little granddaughters together, aged 8, 7, 6 and 3 - two English ones and two Swedish ones - who currently live in Singapore as their Mum and Dad work there at the moment. We were in their home overlooking the Baltic Sea and I gave them an art lesson in the apple orchard. This is a very steep garden, although in the photo it looks flattish. We were surrounded by apple trees bearing green fruit and we were going to draw the house. A tall narrow format was ideal, … [Read more...]
Bookbinding for kids
For many years, whenever I have had to entertain a child for the day, if they are the sort of child who likes drawing or writing, we make a little book. Then they happily spend the rest of the day drawing in it. A neat formula.Well I had the grandchildren over today because it is school holidays and their Mum was working. Here are the instructions. We used my book cradle to mark the holes and pierce the books. You don't really need a book cradle unless you are doing lots of books or the books … [Read more...]