gelli plate with a 4 year old

Hi Folks

What an absolute ball I had with my 4 year old grand daughter the other week with the Gelli plate.  First and foremost she thought it was absolutely hilarious that the gelli plate was A/ called a gelli plate (she loves jelly) and B/ it wobbled like jelly.  We had so much fun and we had not even started the printing process.  I am new to Gelli printing so we could have probably done so much more but I thought ok lets start small.  We used the brayer to spread the paint and stencils to leave the impressions etc I then thought "ach stuff it get in about it and use your fingers" :) So I gave my grand daughter permission to do just that :) The green and yellow print and the purple and mud print are fingers :) we had great fun indeed.  This is going to be a short post as we did not do as much art as intended.  I took my grand daughter down to the links market in Kirkcaldy.  I will post a pic for those who don't know what the links market is :) so the first picture is the gelli prints we did and the next one is the links market :)

this photo does not do the size of the market justice.  It is huge and runs all the way the main street along the prom in Kirkcaldy.  Apparently its the longest market in Scotland. :)

 

Until the next time, have fun creating :) T x

Art Journaling with a 4 year old

I have pondered how to do this for sometime, wondered how to keep my grand daughters attention and to encourage her to follow instruction without sucking the fun out of art.  I have looked on pinterest, oh my goodness I could get lost all day on that site lol but soooo glad I finally took the plunge and set up an account.  There is a wealth of ideas and inspiration for all sorts out there.  It really is like having your own electronic pin boards.  I have several categories to keep a better track on all I like and pin :)  So anyway I came across this article that spoke about the word side of art journaling and children. click here to read the full article. I was delighted to read that it is possible to encourage the word side of art journaling with children as soon as children can begin to form lines on a page.  This can be very early on in life.  There is, it would seem, no age limit.

Of course children are not going to produce professional pieces of art and depending on the age will not write sentences or even full words to begin with (if the child is not at that developmental stage of being able to write) But what they can do is form shapes and gain confidence in writing letters then words from practise in a fun way.  Certainly in Scoltand, children at nursery (children can start nursery at aged 3 in Scotland in some circumstances) will be encouraged to write their names on their art work they do at nursery.  I don't produce professional pieces of art either so as long as you can let go of pre conceived ideas of what your child should be able to do in a journal the more freeing and fun the experience will be.  I have three children of my own, all grown up now.  I used to love having art and craft sessions with them.  However I did not do journaling and that is something, if I had known about then, I would have done.  For me the bonus is I now have grandchildren so my intention is to start art journaling with each of them as and when they are ready to begin.  We will go at their pace and stop if they do not wish to carry on.  Having said that, they are my grandchildren so why would they not be artistic with fantastic imaginations? lol

I have had my first art journal session with my granddaughter aged 4.  Here are some photos of the mini art journal she made, with a tiny bit of help from me and jennibellie of course as we used the inspiration station free tutorial  click on the link to view the information video showing how to access the free class on jennibellie's journal workshop community.  Alternatively just go straight to jennibellie's journal workshop The inspiration station class speaks about having a single box full of inspirational art supplies as well as having favourite items to offer inspiration in times of losing your mojo :) This box is separate to all your other art supplies and what you want to make it.  This is ideal for children as it can be their own art supplies and items to use in their own art journal as well as make the mini journal.  I see this as a single box that will be easy to get out and use at any given time.  They will know exactly what they can use and it can be full of things that are childproof.  As well as things that won't matter if  they destroy them in the name of art :) They can even decorate it themselves, a project in itself :)

I have not organised an inspiration station box for my granddaughter to use yet but here are the photos of the mini journal made.

 

 

 

The shapes I drew for her and she cut out.  The stickers used are the stickers she chose.  The painting is all done by my grand daughter without interference from me.  I encouraged her to write letters on her pages, I am hoping if you look close enough you will see the letters and there are numbers in there too.  We had such fun so will be doing it again for sure and maybe this time we will get a box and organise an inspiration station.  Watch this space :) as my grand daughter is coming to my place on Wednesday :)

 

Thanks for reading and I hope you have enjoyed your stay and left with some good inspiration of your own to go art journal with your child(ren) :) T x

 

documented life project March 14th

Well, I have to confess I was struggling a little with what I can do for this page. I am now finished and sharing week number 11 of the documented life project click on the link to see the challenge for march 14th The art challenge was borders and the Jounral prompt was "borderline, feels like I am going to lose my mind"  I am still behind on the pages, but looking likely I will catch up very soon.  I have found more often than not that there are sooooo many cool techniques to try and sooooo many options that I am spoilt for choice.  So as usual I left it, did not worry about it until inspiration hit me.  It hit me when having an international adventure.  I have an arty friend in Australia, as well as in America but sadly she was unable to join our adventure.  We met on jennibellies journal workshops community .  Well, to cut a long story short, I happen to mention to my Australian friend I needed to go clothes shopping and that it was not so much fun going on my own. She offered to go with me as a joke but thought the distance would be an issue.  Well, in days of old it would have been.  However in this modern day with technology I could take her with me via the internet.  We exchanged a few photos and opinions and so shared a day of shopping and even coffee, even though my mobile threatened to shut down due to not checking I had enough charge lol.  So here is my version of documenting our adventure.  Perhaps one day my friend will allow me to share her version. 

 

 



The page is made up of two selfies we shared via the internet, when sharing a coffee. For the background I used my new gelli plate :) I love the combination of colours. The border round the photos represents them being on mobile phones, I used charcoal pencil (dark).  I used inktense pencils to border the parking ticket and moon. So that is borders covered.  Oh, I also bordered almost the full page with the journaling.  The connection to the prompt is............. although it feels like I am losing my mind, I am not as I have friends to help keep me grounded :)  There is a white camera icon in the corner of the frame to show it is a mobile photo.  These days mobile phones are all touch screen so no buttons to draw.  I could not think of anything obvious, short of drawing a mobile phone, to make it obvious it's a mobile phone lol.  Anyway, I was in costa having a mocha while my friend was at home having a coffee.  It was day time for me and night time for my friend in Australia.  I have incorporated my receipt from costa (the print disappeared the moment I used medium on it to stick it down) and my parking ticket into the page and added a moon to represent night time to balance the page up :) I felt it was still missing something so I drew in the edge of a satellite dish at the top of the page and drew in oval shapes going smaller towards the satellite to represent the mobile signal.

So thanks to my friend for allowing me to share my page.  Thank you Annejuli :) She is an artist in her own right and one day I will do an interview with her.  So watch this space,  I plan to branch out and do more with my blog.  :)

Thank you for stopping by

T x