Flour Batik

 These are easy to make and great fun.

 Mix flour and water into a thickish goo. We learned about pattern and then the children made their won flour , shape goo patterns on the fabric. In week 2 when it was all dry we spread on fabric paint with sponges . All that was left was to see them in the oven or with a hot iorn and then wash off the flour.

I sewed these into little bags for the children. They are beautiful.

well done little artists.

The Chameleon

We looked at the book" Chameleons are cool"  and enjoyed the wonderful illustrations. This book encouraged some great discussion which is something I particularly love to do with children. Talk. Art is in part about talking and helping children make sense of the world around.

Then we got going!! We drew with pencil first and then used watercolors to paint in the beautiful colours of our Chameleon.

Are these not wonderful!!

The Bike Lesson

 We began this fun lesson by looking at different sorts of bikes. We talked about the need to draw 'big' for this one and to choose a part of the bike to draw. For the older children this was an easy concept but for the younger few they needed help to fully grasp this idea. We used small cardboard frames that could help with the selection of the part of the bike  selected to draw.

 Part 2 was the deciding on the primary colour and then mixing tints and tones to paint into the negative spaces.

 Part three was painting the bike with the secondary opposite colour - complementary colour. The process was simply wonderful and the results were fabulous. Great stuff .

This little boy is 6 years old and he worked so hard and carefully as he drew and enjoyed sloshing on the paint into the negative spaces.

New beginnings - Kids art at The Studio

 This is a very exciting time for me. I am both excited and nervous . The seed of a dream is beginning to germinate. I am branching out will be offering art classes to all and any children out there from 6 to 12 years old.

I am a mother of 4 boys and am married to Doug. I am a preschool and foundation phase teacher by profession. I love watching children grow and learn about the world around them. Teaching art is a wonderful way for children to learn  as they use their sense to explore and reproduce , in some form ,  a representation of what they see. It never seases to amaze me how children begin to really look and explore an object. It is an exciting journey for the child and for me the teacher.

I love beautiful things and enjoy colour and form. I take great pleasure in living in Cape Town which is both blessed with natural beauty and also full of very talented people who express themselves in many different ways. I have allowed our boys to draw and paint a great deal throughout their lives thus far. This is good example of a young child's representation of the human form.

So as of now I am offering art lessons to children. We will be exploring different "themes" and contexts while learning some art fundamentals. The three children I have already been teaching have had great fun in learning and experiencing art.

If you would like your child to join in art lessons with us please contact me . Caren.Falconer@gmail.com
Or 0836565927 Kids art at The Studio

Self - what do I really look like?

My camera has a dead battery so there are no beautiful pictures for this are lesson. I will try and describe the lesson in word art.:)

To start with each child had a mirror so that they could see exactly what they looked like as they drew. they worked into white paper using oil pastels. First we looked at the shape of our heads and discovered that they are not round but rather and oval or egg shape.  We looked at where our eyes are positioned and discovered they are in the middle of the egg shaped head and the ears are basically along the same line to the side. The nose has a unique center stage position and finishes up right near the lips. Lips and teeth were interesting to look at to as were necks or under arm pits as one little man called it:) and then the throat , eye brows and other interesting things like eye lashes  and hair. All this was put together with great care and with lots and lots of re-looking at actual shape. I just love the way the pictures unfolded like a master baker creating a delicious feast. I love they way they talked about what they were doing. The tooth that peeped out over the bottom lip and the tiny little beauty spot or red spot all made present on the skin.  How to make the nose stand out from the skin presented a problem and was fun to try and solve. They children decided to use different colours to do this. The more quick worker , being the younger, was able to paint a background and wow! what an end result. Just lovely!!

The Apple - art lesson

 In this lesson the children had to work in three quarters on their paper.We talked about the fruit before hand - observing and shining the skin.Noticing colours and shape.

 We set to work!! Children draw apple in pencil. first and then set about using the three primary colours.

 The backgrounds were watery and the results were delightful!!

Lets Look Again Kids

One of the things I feel very passionately about is children . Another is Art. Putting the two together for me is great fun and I am thoroughly enjoying it.  I like to help children re-learn to look at the world around them. My own children and those who come for lessons.

Something happens to children as they get older. They seem to stop looking at things. I mean really looking. Art is a fun and relaxed way to " switch the eyes" back on again. So we try and really see what is in front of us. Like this Hermit crab we found at the beach. What a great thing to draw especially after we watched him unfold himself and creep in and out the shell he had chosen as his home.

What about looking and seeing every detail on a beautiful face!

Children also like to look at ideas and express those on paper and we create lots of opportunities in our home for our own children to do this.

Taking concepts like learning to read and letters and turning them into a picture is great fun and I guess falls into the spectrum called art.

One of my sons did this art work at school. I love it. It is part real and part fantasy.

This is a free painting experience by a 6 year old. He made his own flag on a canvas for his room. .

Taking favorite pictures is a good way to get older children this child used a picture from the internet and created a picture using information from it.

Children can also draw their experiences like and outing to the beach.

These two war pictures were part of a book created by a child. Clearly a boy who loves ideas around war. I love the tank. It has such a feeling of might and strength.

So , get painting and drawing and let your kids have fun as they interpret the world in which we live and share it with you in art.