Remember the art session I promised to do for Shellys nursery, well it took place on Thursday.

32 kids sitting in a semi-circle (aaahhh!!) I began by getting their teacher to read the book 'My Many Coloured Days' by Dr. Seuss . Its a book about colours and how they describe our moods. We then discussed the different colours and what they represent - and i asked the children what colour they were feeling today. I was good to know that most of the girls felt pink and orange and the boys felt blue and multi-coloured!!

I mentioned about hearing how they learnt about Van Gogh and that I wanted to introduce them to an Israeli artist named Menashe Kadishman. (a personal fave).

I told them how he grew up on a kibbutz and worked as a shepard. We discussed what a shepard does and how everyday he spent hours with the sheep - that it was a big part of his life. And how he began painting them, that he painted thousands of sheep. We talked about the colours and how he would be affected by his mood. And we talked about the basic shape of his famous sheep portraits. I showed them how basically 3 triangles made up the head.

And then I asked them to paint their own sheep portraits - taking into account their own mood and the colours they used.

Unfortunately i dont think they paint with gouache often enough and seemed enthusiastic to dip their fat brushes into the water and brightly coloured paints. It was great to watch them and there were some beautiful results..

Shelly was so happy and excited that we were there and so was I.

I gave Shelly some pipe cleaners (lines) and showed her how we can bend them how we like and create shapes with them. I asked her to make a triangle, a square and a circle.

I wanted to introduce the idea of form...to allow her to play around with the pipe-cleaners and enjoy 'drawing' with them in the air. She did enjoy this exercise but although she knows the shapes she found it quite hard to form a triangle and square with the wire.

Then i told Shelly we were going to play a game...i blindfolded her and found all sorts of objects around the house of different shapes. I wanted her to feel the objects and tell me what they were and about their shapes.

She enjoyed this a lot and again, i think this exercise emphasised the idea of form and shape. This lesson was quite different...no drawing or sticking...but i think Shelly enjoyed the game-like activities and it made her think about shapes more.

They seemed to enjoy the printing a lot and although Shelly started with a house shape and after asking them to make a picture made out of lines - recognisable things..they both enjoyed the more abstract way...playing around and enjoying the printing aspect. Liron enjoyed draging the wood - so i pointed out that she could make thick lines in this way. I also gave them each a toilet roll and showed them how they could make circular lines...

After this exercise, i introduced Mondrian to the girls.. particularly this picture..'Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue'. We discussed the lines and the types of shapes and colours in the picture.

I gave them a piece of white paper and some precut shapes and black lines and asked them to creat a picture similar to Mondrians...

They both went about this in a different way...Liron diving in with confidence and moving quickly across the paper and Shelly working much more slowly and precisely.

I really enjoyed this lesson and think the ideas worked well. Thanks to Shari for help in this one!

Edit: I forgot to mention that we had Mercedes Sosa playing in the background!

Have a really good weekend everyone!!

The results were very interesting and i realised that i have to explain further words like edge and 'fill in'. They both seemed a little frustrated that i was telling them exactly what to do and wanted to do it 'their' way.
We then displayed both pictures and i tried to discuss the results with the girls...
Are they the same? How are they similar? How are they different? They were a little reluctant to talk and it took some encouragment...i think it would be good to go back to this exercise in the future.
I then gave the girls a piece of stiff cardboard each, lots of glue and lots of strings and told them to make a picture out of string however they want. It was interesting to see how Liron went for the big lines across the card and Shelly cut small pieces of string and stuck them closer together.

After this was finished, we stuck foil over the whole piece of card and stuck it down-emphasising the string lines.
I asked them to colour in the shapes between the lines. Shelly was enthusiastic about this and Liron wanted to draw a picture on hers. I loved this project. Fun with string and glue and it strengthens the idea of line and introduces shape. I think next time it would be good to encourage more crossing over of lines.

Another interesting lesson with wonderful, interesting differences between the girls!!

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend...my computer is behaving strangely, so if i disappear... ;(

Finally, i told the girls to create a picture made up of lines using many different mediums and however they wanted. I noticed a couple of points here...they were very enthusiastic about cutting up coloured paper and quite wary of mixing several mediums. I encouraged them to 'let loose' but they were quite happy with their own ideas. Liron cut a lot of strips from pink paper and stuck them down in an abstract way.

She then drew on each strip different examples of lines with different coloured felt tip pens. Shelly, on the other hand, used the coloured matchsticks, cut up strips of paper and oil pastels to create a picture of an 'aeroplane'. Liron enjoyed spreading out on the A3 page and Shelly was more interested in attention to detail.

Looking forward to next week...

And thank you all so much for your wonderful comments about last weeks lesson - they are always so welcome!!!