Happy Melting!

After a stressful night of dealing with one of Jared's cardiac conditions we all needed a nice quiet day.  Thankfully our friend Christina was coming over.  Christina is one of those people that brings sunshine with her where ever she goes.  You always feel better after she leaves.  Yesterday she brought with her the supplies to do this really neat art project.

Here's what you need.

1. Elmer's Glue
2. Elmer's Poster Board (or you could use canvas but this was cheaper)
3. Lots of Crayons (we used 85 on our project)
4. Hair Dryer (one you don't care if it gets some crayon splatter on)

STEP ONE:

 

Glue the crayons on the top of the board, close together, tip facing down.  We dumped all the crayons out on the table and took turns choosing a crayon and gluing it on, so that it was truly a team effort/creation. The process is so simple and mistake proof that Titus had no trouble participating.

 STEP TWO:

Give the glue about 30 minutes to dry completely.

STEP THREE:

Lift the board on end and start melting the crayons with the hair dryer.  We found you needed to be pretty close to melt the crayons.  We also learned if you heat them from the bottom they create more of splatter look and if you heat them from the top they drip down.  As you can see, we did a variety of heating angles. I was worried the hair dryer would melt the glue and the crayons would fall off, but though we saw the glue come down in some areas, we didn't have a single crayon fall.

The end result was absolutely beautiful!  I could see someone selling these easily, it's so fun and colorful.  Next time, Chris suggested we put glue randomly all over the board and then press into it broken pieces of crayon.  Then use the hair dryer with the board flat to melt the random pieces in different spray patterns.

Happy Melting!  Seems like a good summer motto in Florida.

Fine Art Friday

Over the years I have purchased a number of "Fine Art Curricula".  I eventually learned that my children did not enjoy them because they were too structured and had too many instructions.  My boys just want to use the media at hand; to experiment and explore.  I was hung up on them learning good technique. I'm finally over that issue.  When my boys are given gentle instruction they soar.

One incredible library find over the summer was a DVD series by Donna Hugh called "Art Lessons for Children".  Simply ready the supplies and the kids paint with the artist.  The instructor is extremely calm and constantly reinforcing having fun with art and that each piece should be unique. I think their work was stunning.

This was the instructor's example.

Lance's version.

Jared's version.

Titus' version.

Charlotte Mason's method on Fine Arts is to simply choose one artist and one composer, then immerse the children with their work for one month.  It was so easy, I jumped right in and gave it a try.  The cheapest way I found to "surround them with art" was to buy calendars featuring the artists work, cut them up and you have twelve prints to hang about the room.  (Hint:  wait until May to buy all your calendars and you can get them for $1-$3 at Calendars.com).  Exposing them to a composer is even simpler, play the music whenever you think about it and take a moment to tell them what they are listening too.  In addition we have had fun reading living books about the artists and composers also.

However, I still craved a little structure to our study.  That's when I found "Harmony Art Mom".  I don't know how I stumbled on it originally but I was intrigued that it presented itself as following a Charlotte Mason approach to Fine Arts.  I eventually went ahead and purchased the First Grade Curricula and most of the supporting materials (all except the coloring book, my boys don't even like the structure of coloring books).

In February we finished our study of Renoir and Vivaldi**.  The program does not follow the CC artists and composers exactly but I think the overlap from different cycles only serves to enhance their learning.  This month we will be studying Manet and Bach (BTW I did not misspell Monet, it is a different artist named Manet).  It's a great way to end the week or start the week slow if you need too, like we did after a super busy weekend. Here's there final projects for Renoir, impressionistic painting of them taking baths.  They were definitely careful not to have strong outlines :-)

I'm always impressed at my boys attention when it comes to fine arts.  They watched a full DVD of "Swan Lake" the other day.  I read them a short summary of the plot before and they were asking questions about what was happening the whole time.  Afterwards they even voluntarily wrote journal entries about the ballet.  Henry Trumball says poor taste and short attentions have a lot to do with expectations and exposure.  I agree.

**Here is one of four awesome videos of an artist drawing in sand to Vivaldi's Four Seasons: