April Showers Bring May Flowers

It's almost May and all this rain has got to stop so those flowers can spring to life. To celebrate Spring, I have pulled out some of my daughter's flower artwork and put them together in a collection. Rather than having a box of artwork, I have decided to have a poster created which I will have framed and placed prominently in our home.
We'll be offering this poster service through Budding Artists. Check back in a few weeks for pricing and more details.

Happy Earth Day!

Today is Earth Day...A day to reflect on our natural landscapes and the environment we live in. Our featured artist today is Andy Goldsworthy, a British sculptor who creates outdoor art installations using materials found in the natural environment.  Here is a video of a grade 6 class inspired by Goldsworthy and some of their art installations created by natural materials in their schoolyard.

Kathy Barbro from Art Project for Kids took old flowers ( donated from a florist) and had her students create petal arrangements. They were left there for others to enjoy.  Patti, Deep Sapce Sparkle, blogs about a parent who created a book with artwork inspired by Goldsworthy. It was part of a Grade 3 unit called Neighborhood Nature. With today's technology, one can easily document artwork created in nature. What a wonderful idea! I may just do this for my children's annual school, Gathering In the Garden workshop. I have been inspired. Now...to take action.

Handprint Art

Here at Budding Artists, we see a lot of fantastic artwork. For the younger children, a favourite type of artwork is using handprints to make  simple pictures.  Here are some samples:

I came across a very cute blog called Keepsake Handprint Calendar that will give you some great handprint art ideas for all year round. Check it out here

Kirigami

Kirigami is the art of paper cutting. I was inspired by Omiyage's blog post and decided to make some coloured "snowflakes". Yes, I know Spring is here but these don't look like that dreaded white stuff. My daughterand I worked together to create our own kirigami. You will need square paper or origami paper,  a sharp pair of scissors, cardstock and spray glue. You may want to iron your "snowflake" to flatten it.














The trick is in the paper folding. It doesn't take long to master but be patient. Here are the instructions. They were written by Jessica from How about Orange. I had to do the folding for my daughter and she made the cuttings. Here are some of our creations. I, then spray glued it and pasted it on card stock. I used cheap "origami" paper from the dollar store. Next time, I am going to use origami paper. You can purchase some really beautiful ones from  Omiyage. Try it and have fun

Monday at the Art Institute of Chicago

Yesterday, my family and I went to the Art Institute of Chicago. We spent four hours there with our teenage son and 8 year old daughter.  I was happily surprised that they were engaged for that long.

Tip #1: Get the audio guide.

Tip #2: Get a list of "must see". Their favourites were Seurat's Sunday at La Grande Jatte  and Grant Wood's iconic American Gothic


Tip#3 Visit the gift shop at the beginning and take a look at the art postcards. Also visit at the end to pick u a souvenir. There is always something funky and fun. We picked up some neat art and craft kits. I can't wait to use my artist finger puppets. I have Van Gogh, Dali, Kahlo and Monet all from a company called The Unemployed Philosopher's Guide.

Tip#4: Begin at kid friendly exhibits. In our case, we started at the Touch Gallery and the Miniature Gallery.
Tip#5 End at a high note. In our case, the kids were hungry. They got to choose where to eat. We didn't get to see everything. We missed the Modern Wing. Upon leaving, my daughter was visibly torn between leaving and finding the Golden Bird by Constantin Brancusi. Her interest was tweaked by a story she heard in the Kids section. She made us promise her that the next time we come we would see it.

I could have spent the entire day there. It was just the right amount of time.  Chicago is a manageable drive and even better on the train.  We'll be back.
drive...even better by train. We'll be back soon.

International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day and thank you to all the women before me who have paved the road to change and all the fantastic women I know who are making positive changes everyday.
Here at Beyond the Fridge Door, we honour all women artists who struggle to get their message across. Thank you to Canadian Women Artists  Prudence Heward, Emily Carr, Betty Goodwin, Maud Lewis and Rita Letendre.

Restaurant Art Fun

I love it when restaurants provide crayons and paper. It keeps the kids busy. Usually, we play a game of guess the picture. Tonight, we were out  with my daughter's ringette team tonight and we sat with  Jakob and his dad, Brad. They were deeply engaged in a scribble game. Watching them, generated an interesting conversation on creativity.

The games was simple. One would make a scribble and the other would try to find a picture within the scribble. So simple and yet so engaging.

Look for the original scribble and can you see how Jakob transforms it to something more. My favourite is the one on the left.  I promised him I would put it on a T-shirt for his Dad. Come back next week to see the finished product.


What other art games have you played in a restaurant using the crayons provided?