1000 visitors! Thank you!

Hurrah! I've just noticed that the artBambino blog has received 1000 visits! Thanks for all your interest and support since the website went up earlier this year.It means a lot to me.

Gailxx

Teachers' strike day

With many teachers taking industrial action all over the country today, we thought we would get the creative box out for the afternoon and do a bit of 'art homeschooling'!

Fish bowls

Today it was my turn to run an art activity at my son's toddler group in town. I thought that 'Fish Bowls' would be a nice idea, as it combines simple sticking with lots of messy glue and glitter shaking! These are a few of the results - so cute!

Portraits - after-school art class

The girls in my Wednesday after-school art class finished their portraits yesterday. These fabulous large scale portraits were made on A2 paper with chalk and charcoal.
The girls worked so hard - last week they began by drawing the head shape, which they then sectioned to get the features in the right place. They then used the chalk and charcoal to create areas of highlight and shadow so that the features became more three-dimensional.
The results are amazing - especially considering the girls are 7 and 8 years old. You can see individual styles emerging; some strong and graphic, others more subtle and sensitive. This was such a challenging project for primary school children, and they rose to the occasion. I'm really proud of their achievement.

Adult Printmaking Course

I completed a three week printmaking course in Wendens Ambo last night. There were some beautiful linocuts produced, as you can see from these photos. We experimented with single and two colour printing, using lots of markmaking to create texture and form.
If you are interested in booking a linocutting course, you can email me at info@artbambino.co.uk

Design Museum Family Day - 26th June

The Design Museum is holding another one of it's hugely successful Family Day's a week on Sunday. Full details are on the website: http://designmuseum.org/family-day
The museum is in London, very close to Tower Bridge.

Mosaic tiles

I do a fortnightly workshop at a local nursery. We've done some great activities but I don't take photographs of the children working for privacy reasons. However at the end of today's workshop I took the work outside and took some photos on my phone.
We made mosaic tiles today. This is a simple art activity which also helps to develop dexterity and maths skills. The children are 3-4 years old, and they needed a lot of concentration to line up the squares and leave a small gap in between each one. Some even managed to create a colour repeat pattern.
I've got some squares left over, so I'll let my two have a go after school!

Half Term Printmaking

We had a great time printmaking yesterday. We learned how to make mono-prints from paintings, and then created a simple block print. Flowers and fish were the big themes of the day! The older ones made lovely mono-prints from life in the afternoon.
If you think your children would enjoy an artBambino workshop, subscribe to this blog, or send a mailing list request to info@gailashton.co.uk