Saturday Artist {Exploring Cubism}

We have been learning a little about cubism this week. We found this site really helpful in simply explaining some of the concepts.
Then we looked at some examples of cubism. I asked the girls what they thought about the pieces they saw. It is always interesting to hear the thoughts of small children on art :)

Bujana really took to cubism, she liked the geometric shapes and the sense of movement they create.
For example in Picasso's "The Guitar Player"(below) Boo said she could see the hand of the guitar player strumming, his foot tapping and the music literally vibrating through the lines and shapes on the canvas. She couldn't believe how she could see all this in only a few lines and shapes!
But that is exactly what cubism aims to portray."Cubists wanted to show all the sides of an object in the same picture." The internal, external, physicality, movement and character.
Picasso obviously has many examples of this in his work.

To get the idea of how simple colours and geometric shapes can create designs we started by sticking coloured paper squares onto simple line drawings.

As many of the paintings we had looked at contained a musical instrument of some sort. I thought it would be cool to have the girls draw their guitar in different angles on their canvas.

We used oil pastels to create strong definite lines.

Then we rotated the guitar in different angles and positions. The girls simply drew the changing contours and shapes as they saw them. They tried to include all the angles in the one drawing regardless of how much their picture "looked" like a regular guitar.

The girls used a muted, minimal colour palette like many of the cubist paintings we had talked about. The minimal palette, really helped to emphasize the lines and shapes.

But Bujana loves purple so.... :)
Once the paintings were dry we cut the canvas into strips and glued the strips back together onto a piece of thick card in whatever order we wanted. (i.e) "The paintings looked like someone had cut them up and glued them back together."

Here is Bujana's "Guitar" :)

For more Saturday Artists head on over to "Ordinary Life Magic"

Salt Painted Christmas Cards

We love to make our own Christmas cards. This is one of the best craft "recipes" we've found so far.

The girls had so much fun making these Christmas cards using the salt paint technique borrowed from this lovely post. Thanking Elizabeth for the link!

It was especially enjoyable because it was the kind of craft that kids of all ages can enjoy.

With four girls aged between 3 and 12 this is always a bonus!

To make the cards we first covered our pieces of watercolour paper in glue stick glue.

Then we sprinkled on a layer of salt.

Next we "dripped" slightly diluted food colouring into our paper to create the beautiful crystallized paint effect... (this was the most fun part)

It was quite mesmerizing watching the colour seep through the salt crystals.

Once dry we cut our paintings into star and Christmas tree shapes...

Before sticking them onto blank cards.

We finished decorating them with seed beads and sequins.

A lovely, creative, and thrifty way to spend an afternoon!

Shared with No Time for Flash Cards

Fruit

Gentle painting with my girls....
Is something beautiful for my soul.