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Archive for January, 2012
Monday, January 30th, 2012
If you stop by the Art Studio in the month of February you’ll notice a fantastic splash of color on the back wall we created after a trip to the office supply store*. This will be a space for visitors to share their most important memories during our project Telling Our Stories, starting this Wednesday. Here’s how we made the pattern:
Last week, Studio volunteers Jenn, Nancy, and Sarah worked tirelessly creating a giant grid of 4″x4″ squares using a ruler and a laser level (best invention ever!).
Next, Cindy and Jane, also Studio volunteers, filled in each square across the grid with Post-its following a pattern I drew with colored pencils on some graph paper.
Little by little throughout the day…
The pattern began to take shape…
Until finally…
The grid was finally complete and is ready to be filled with memories!
Telling Our Stories
February 1 – March 13, 2012
Free with Museum Admission
Timelines are records highlighting significant events and journeys in the past. Create a personal timeline with drawings of your most memorable life events. During school vacation week help honor the important people in your life on the Art Studio’s memory wall.
Can’t make it to The Carle in February? Take a look at the list of questions below. Answer one (or more) in the comments section and I’ll add it to the wall for you.
- WHAT IS YOUR HAPPIEST MEMORY?
- DESCRIBE A MEMORY SHARED WITH YOUR BEST FRIEND OR A FAMILY MEMBER.
- WHERE IS YOUR FAVORITE PLACE TO GO? WHY?
- WHAT IS THE BEST GIFT YOU’VE EVER GIVEN? RECEIVED?
- WHAT IS THE BEST THING YOU’VE EVER LEARNED?
*We used 4″x4″ Super Sticky Post-its in Tropical.
Tags: memory wall, paper, pattern, post-its, quilt, Telling Our Stories
Posted in In the Studio, Materials, Public Art Program | No Comments »
Saturday, January 21st, 2012
 Yeah, I’m already a week behind on reporting out on our new weekly (in Jan & Feb) materials experience for toddlers. I’ll let you know right now that I don’t hold out hope for getting caught up, but I’ll do my best to share something from each week of this program by…..June.
Tissue Paper Mountain I called it. With things hiding inside, as you may have spotted.
Destruction of the mountain was tentative at first, with just a couple of children and their parents present. After more friends joined, and a little tearing and tossing on the adults’ part, everyone just went wild. The tricky thing was not slipping on the paper when things got really wild. By the time it started getting too slippery it was easy to then invite the transition to gluing the tissue (in wads, hunks, mounds, strips and shapes) onto large pieces of watercolor with liquid starch. Instructions for a similar, if more controlled, version of this activity can be found on our activities page.
Tags: liquid starch, mountain, storytime, tissue paper
Posted in Activities, At The Carle, Collage, In the Studio, Infants & Toddlers, Materials, Preschool, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 18th, 2012
Over the years we’ve worked with found materials in the Studio many times and witnessed sculptures go from piles of stuff to thoughtful, creative arrangements. Below are five different building techniques to consider the next time you and your child are playing with blocks or you’re students are making sculptures using found materials. These techniques are adapted from Block Building For Children by Lester Walker and paired with examples created by Studio staff. In chapter two of his book, Walker sites an essay, “The Art of Block Building” by the founder and director of the City and Country School in New York City, Harriet M. Johnson. Ms. Johnson’s research found similarities in the way young children worked with blocks during independent play. What type of structures do your children/students tend to build? Have you noticed a change in your child’s independent block play as they grow older?
 Rows - a repetition of materials in a line
 Towers - a repetition of one thing on top of another, building up from the bottom
 Patterns - designs arranged by repeating a material or style.
 Columns and Beams - beams can support heavy loads like a wall, roof or road. Columns are the vertical posts that usually support beams.
 - Spaces – materials arranged to create an enclosure
Tags: Block Building For Children, block play, blocks, Harriet M. Johnson, Lester Walker, Sculpture Stories
Posted in Found Materials, Nurturing Creativity at Home, Preschool, Public Art Program | 1 Comment »
Thursday, January 12th, 2012
The weather outside today is a sloppy mix of rain and snow, a perfect day for a wet winter discovery walk. But if you’re not in the mood to go puddle jumping, why not stop by The Carle and experiment with an array of found materials the Studio’s collection! For a few weeks now visitors young and old have been whipping up sculptures and finding creative solutions to various construction challenges. Sometimes visitors have a vision of how they want their finished sculptures to look but find it challenging finding the right parts to put together or the best way to attach them with the glue or wire. Our studio staff is here to help find solutions when visitors need help with the materials.
Below is an interaction I had recently with a young boy (age 6?) who was very enthusiastic about the telescope he was making using a long, skinny tube:
Boy: “I’m trying to make a telescope and I want to use this (round, red reflector) on the end so that when you look through it everything is red. But when you look through you can’t see anything”.
Diana: (I look into the telescope) “Well it looks like the red reflector is too thick to see through. Is there something else we could find in the baskets that is more transparent? I see the basket full of bottle caps and the basket with ribbons. Maybe there is something that you could attach to the end that is thin enough to see through”.
B: “That just may work!”
He eagerly sifted through the basket of caps and found a clear bottle cap that was almost the same diameter as his tube. He also found some shimmery ribbon and looked through the tube as it was wrapped around the other end. He ended up using the bottle cap because he liked how it was removable. To accompany his telescope he made a small cardboard dish to hold small objects to observe through the tube.
I’m always amazed at the variety of visitors’ imaginative ideas applied to the same arrangement of materials!
Stop by before February 1st to make your own Sculpture Story.
Tags: 3d, sculpture, Sculpture Stories
Posted in Activities, Found Materials, In the Studio, Public Art Program | 1 Comment »
Friday, January 6th, 2012
This morning kicked off something new I’m trying in the Studio- Friday mornings 10:00-10:30 in Jan. and Feb. I’m setting up materials provocations especially for toddlers and their caregivers, free with Museum admission or membership. A related storytime in the Reading Library follows at 10:30 am.
Today we made bubble prints and shaving foam prints. I’ve done bubble printing with young children in the past but dug around the internet for a few alternate recipes. Today the mixture of tempera paint and dish soap worked better than the bubble solution and tempera paint mixtures. If you want to try bubble printing at home you might try this recipe. And this shaving foam tutorial has pictures and easy instructions.
Next week we’re doing something (its a surprise!) with tissue paper, so if you’re in the Amherst area and find yourself with a toddler on your hands next Friday morning, come on by and play!
Tags: play
Posted in Activities, At The Carle, Infants & Toddlers, Materials, Nurturing Creativity at Home, Printmaking | 2 Comments »
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