Sculpting blind

We've finally come to the end of our time looking at Georgia O'Keeffe.

Towards the end of her life O'Keeffe's sight began to fail her and she turned more to sculpting.

To emphasise this point the boys attempted to make some models blindfold.

Neither much liked the experience of not being able to see what they were doing. Lamb lasted only a few minutes before he could stand it no longer, though Moo actually asked to be blindfold again later in the day to play with the blindfold :-)

They both got the point though, and found it much harder when they couldn't see what they were doing.

More than any of the art they have done thus far this little exercise has really ingrained the name 'Georgia O'Keeffe' into their minds.

There is a lovely free 'festivals of light' printable available on this winter's edition of 'Rhythm of the Home',

intended for use to make a little booklet. The kids used this to get in some good pencil control practise and scissor skills practise, which both of them need to work on, while we talked about the Winter Solstice and the various celebrations at this time of year.

Instead of making little booklets, the kids made some banners to hang on the wall using reflective baking foil

- which included a little bit of scientific discussion on why some things are shiny :-)

Now they are both desperate to start getting the Christmas decorations put up!

Salt dough angels and more Georgia O'Keeffe

We're coming to the end of our time looking at Georgia O'Keeffe's work. Moo is the real art lover, Lamb can take it or leave it. Today we had a look at some of Georgia O'Keeffe's bone pictures again, and looked at some more photos of O'Keeffe throughout her life. The boys then had the opportunity to get really messy and had a go at drawing some duck bones with charcoal sticks. Lamb wanted to post his off to Georgia O'Keeffe for her to see and I had to explain why that wasn't going to be possible.

Get messy they most certainly did!

Getting into the Christmas spirit again, today we made angels using salt dough. The boys wanted to make some angels we could hang from the ceiling so we made their heads hollow to put ribbon through. Before the little angels went into the oven to dry out we made the holes in the back to insert their wings afterwards.

And then came the glitter... an explosion of glitter, quite literally (the tops flew off the glitter shakers)!!

As we had some of the salt dough left over and lots of glitter to clear up we combined the two and the boys used the cookie cutters to make some sparkly star decorations to go on the tree when it finally goes up.

All in all a rather peaceful day (I suspect that the lack of any numeracy work might have something to do with that!!).

Georgia O'Keeffe inspired

As we're doing a body topic at the moment we've taken the opportunity to look at some of Georgia O'Keeffe's bone paintings. Moo particularly loves our art time looking at famous artists. Lamb, as you can see in the picture is taking his art very seriously, but is far more interested in his art than some old artist!

Yesterday I laid out a series of different arty activities for the boys and miraculously they had both suddenly finished what they were doing. In this picture Lamb decided to use chalks to draw bones 'with clouds in the sky'. Moo also took the opportunity to paint the floor, which is why all our art time takes place on the lino!

As well as various bone based activities there I also laid out some materials to make autumn crowns, which are still drying as so much glue was used! The kids then took it all to the next level. Leaves we painted and stuck onto bone paintings, they both demanded scissors and before I knew it they had created leafy, black snowflakes... or something like that!