Creating Fairy Homes at the Beach
With the Autumn fast approaching, we’ve been busy making the most of the last of the warm summer weather to spend time getting creative on the beach again. It’s always fun to make sandcastles, but this time we decided to create miniature fairy-sized homes instead, using only the materials we could find available to hand. Instead of using full sized buckets to make the buildings, we used plastic cups and bottle lids (I found the clear ones were the best as you could see the sand through the sides). First we created a miniature village or castle with conical shell roofs… Then we created a miniature scene with…
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Arty Activities at the Beach
The seaside is a wonderful place for creative activities of all kinds, whether it be games, imaginary play or art. My own favourite activity is scavenging – I find it a physical impossibility to go for a walk along the beach without coming home with a collection of stones, shells, sea-glass and driftwood. All beautiful and inspiring materials that I can’t resist, and always think I will create something with. The collection grows ever larger now we live close by and the opportunities for collecting are greater! I first wrote about Beach Art a few years ago, including various ideas for artistic activities, but my younger son has now developed his own…
Funky Fish Kids Art Collage
This is a really simple but versatile activity which is great for using up odd scraps of paper, whether it be pieces of painted paper, children’s discarded artwork, wrapping paper or even sweet wrappers. Apart from this, all you need is a Medium Circle Paper Punch (we actually used 2 for the different sized fish, measuring 1.5cm and 1cm), some glue and pieces of coloured or painted thin card for the fish base. It’s also a great ‘drop-in’ activity or collaborative project. Each child can choose a plain card fish and they can then create something of their own which can be combined as part of a larger group artwork. Perfect…
Easy-Peasy Watercolours
I remember reading that the artist JMW Turner once advised an amateur artist that her watercolours would be improved immeasurably if she dunked them in a bucket of water. This was not meant as an insult, but I think was a genuine piece of advice. The beauty of watercolour, which Turner especially exploited to its full, lies in its softness and delicacy, but this can be difficult to achieve successfully. Watercolour can be difficult to control, and I for one have come to realise that I perhaps strive to control it too much. So I have been very pleased with the new watercolour markers I recently treated myself to, because…
Snowflake Colour-In Wrapping Paper
Each year I like to produce something as a Christmas ‘gift’ for readers, so this year’s offering is a snowflake colouring sheet which can also be used as a creative wrapping paper. Colour-in wrapping paper is I think amazingly versatile, offering lots of scope for personalisation by both the giver and the recipient. I think they look just as effective partly coloured as fully coloured, or even left plain. This snowflake themed sheet is very simple, and can be made to look very pretty with the addition of glitter glue, or metallic pens for colouring or outlining. Just click on the image and then right click to download it for…
10 Activities for a Creative Christmas
Preparing for Christmas provides the perfect excuse (if any is needed!) to start making things, whether it be gifts, cards, decorations or even wrapping paper – the personal touch makes the finished product so much more meaningful, showing that someone has put time and effort into creating something unique. There is nothing more satisfying and enjoyable than creating your own Christmas items – and often saving money in the process! The activities and products listed here will all contribute to a more creative Christmas – Click on the links listed below to see more: Decorative Foil Seals Finger Puppet Christmas Cards A Card with A View Colour in Christmas Crackers…
Custom Cover Sketchbooks
My love of hand-lettering continues apace – I find it incredibly therapeutic and relaxing – all you really need is paper and pencil, making it easy to pick up and put down, and very portable – ideal if you don’t have lots of art materials to hand. This project was inspired by my son telling me that a boy in his class had got into trouble for drawing on the cover of his exercise book at school. Apparently he loves to draw, and from the work I have seen, has talent for it – I thought it was such a shame that he should be punished for doing something so…
The Dramatic Art of Shadows
So October is here already, and it’s time to get ready for that festival of all things spooky – Halloween. I have to confess I am not a fan of the blood/gore/horror aspect of Halloween – I’m much too squeamish for that, I prefer the eerie/atmospheric/gothic approach. The kind of scariness that relies more on suggestion and imagination. Shadows are of course one of the simplest yet most evocative things you can use at Halloween to create atmosphere, so I thought I’d do a round-up of shadow themed creative activities to try with children: If you’re looking for some DIY spooky creativity, the Shadow Art Boxes we created a few years…
Creative Teacher Gift Bags
It’s that time of year again, and for us, the end of an era as my eldest finishes primary school and moves on to pastures new. As he described it, the last day was one of the happiest days of his life, but also one of the saddest as members of the class go their separate ways. Email and phone numbers have been exchanged, and hopefully nowadays there is no excuse for not keeping in touch. It is a particularly busy time for us, which the complete lack of recent activity on this blog testifies to, as we prepare to take the opportunity of the enforced change to relocate both…
Drawing Projects for Children
There are no shortage of practical books about art out there for children, but speaking as someone whose first love in art is drawing, I was curious to review Drawing Projects for Children by Paula Briggs, (published by Black Dog) as there are not so many which focus on the act of drawing itself. This is not a book about ‘how to draw’ in the traditional sense, and is, I personally thought, all the better for it. Instead it is a truly creative book – the projects are aimed at encouraging children to explore different aspects of drawing for themselves – inviting them to think and create in different ways. Well-structured,…
Drawing with Charcoal
Charcoal is my all time favourite medium for drawing – I love the speed and spontaneity of the medium. However there is no doubt that it’s not something used a great deal with young children. This is probably because it can be incredibly messy to use (though washable), and young children could easily end up covered in it – not to mention everything else in the vicinity if you’re not too careful. I think this is a shame though, so I decided to bite the bullet and introduce my younger son to the medium. I would have involved the elder too if he had been willing, but though he took…
New Colourful Gallery Wall
We’re currently planning some decorating at home, so I’ve been busy getting samples of paint and trying them on the walls. Looking in the garage I find I have dozens of these sample pots since I never throw them away afterwards if there is still paint in them – after all they can be useful for touch-ups, or for small projects etc. So all this activity gave me an idea for a new gallery wall. Our existing chalkboard gallery is great, but I find I would like to have the wall back to draw on rather than just display artwork, so I thought I would create a new gallery wall.…
