“I bring you candles in the early dark hours. I bring a photograph of the moon half-full, walking through a bright blue sky. I bring the yellow leaves lit up by low sun. I bring the smell of burn.

I bring the peat fire, wet blacktop, bodies of spiders curing in corners, rosemary, the grass wet in the morning.

I bring a wool cloth, a linen cloth.

In the dark part of the year we find a scratch of light where we can get it. The stars are brilliant. The snow when we have it shines. We are walking together in the darkness, in silence or talking, the sounds of birds and animals, the hanging boughs of yew with their bright red, translucent berries.”

* * *

“For the dark part of the year, I bring you a calendar full of drawings from my travels this year. I bring you warm words, bunnies flying kites, robins & rosehips, the Belgian winter. I bring you my child-self, and early mornings in a kitchen an hour outside Ghent. I bring the young women working in warm, bright cafés at winter’s early nightfall. I bring you something to read with your tea or coffee, on the bus or walking to work (careful, there!).”

* * *
WORDS & ILLUSTRATIONS by the warm & oh so creative EIREANN LORSUNG

by Sergio Dias of kedublock.com

Coloured paper, flour and invisible objects… looking forward to exploring this idea with the children in the weeks to come.

Kedublock “is a project by Sérgio Dias in a collaboration with Nature focused on creating original handmade wooden toys.”

Thanks to this recent post by oberholtzer-creative, I have just purchased an ornamental egg to support the BRC’s efforts in Japan!

“In an effort to assist Japan in their momentous healing and rebuilding efforts, The British Red Cross, in combination with the Egg-Bot and a select group of artists offer the Eastern Egg“. Proceeds go towards the BRC’s Japan Tsunami Appeal, and “donors may get the chance to watch their egg being printed (by the Egg-Bot itself) via webcam.”

I am in constant dialogue with myself when it comes to storytelling – searching for new ways to engage children in language and the arts. Felt cut-outs and recycled cardboard are useful but at this stage in my teaching career, I feel the need to challenge myself to involve a more diverse range of materials within storytelling, for both myself and the children. I have always welcomed the use of whatever is available in the room or on the shelf closest to you when a child asks you to read a story but… my goal is to create a thoughtful collection, something more permanent. With an emphasis on reusing materials and objects that I already have within my home, I am determined to make props for each of the stories I have in my library before I head back to school September 1st.

This afternoon while browsing my inspiration folder, this photo by the talented Miss Yokoo has reminded me that no matter how fuzzy or twisty the scraps from these ‘homemade props’ may be, they are worth saving and sharing.

Art + Photo by Yokoo

I like the idea of art that is temporary; creating on a bare table top or a the edges of a bookshelf. If you do too, be sure to have adhesives and paper nearby – some children just aren’t willing to accept that their creations get picked up piece by piece and put back into a glass container for use another day.

FUN! Artist Joel Henriques has provided us with a free template but I would like to encourage you to be inspired and inspire the little people around you to make their own Paper City. Please take some time to visit Joel’s blog – I am certain you will leave with an idea or five.

“Trees” an “Animated Art Gallery – Poetic Documentary about trees – Made by 22 Italian pupils (9y old) during Art and Music classes. To make this work they learnt to play the recorder, they played a real concert harp, they spent 2 years learning watercolour techniques for sky, bush and trees, studying the shape of a tree in different situations.

This video is produced with Free Open Source Software. Frames were grabbed with Stopmotion
developer.skolelinux.no/info/studentgrupper/2005-hig-stopmotion/index.php. Editing was done in Cinelerra. This video is published under the Creative Commons License BY-NC-SA 2.5 Italy.”

Alberi from Raffaella Traniello on Vimeo.

The making of ALBERI from Raffaella Traniello on Vimeo.

A Google search for ‘children + self-portraits’ lead me to this VIDEO presented by deputy headteacher and art co-ordinator Peter Sanders. This “programme shows how portraiture is extended and developed by all the year groups at Lauriston School in Hackney, east London.

Portraiture is taken beyond the boundaries of drawing and painting by using methods such as face painting in the nursery and large-scale three-dimensional modelling for the older pupils. The programme explores how introducing new skills and working with a wide range of materials can produce diverse results.

One of the many benefits of doing a whole-school art project is that it gives pupils and teachers a chance to see the variety of approaches and outcomes that can spring from a common starting point. It shows different ways of working which can be easily applied to other projects.”

Teachers TV: Share clever ways to begin the educational journey, ideas to aid literacy and communication, and help pupils understand and relate to communities.”

If there is one exhibition I would like to attend before the end of 2009, it is this one.

Natalie Abadzi and Jim Green November 19th-24th Nolias Gallery 60 Great Suffolk Street London UK

By Alberto Cerriteno

“Terrible Yellow Eyes is a collab initiative by Corey Godbey as a tribute and collection of works inspired by the beloved classic, Where the Wild Things Are book of Maurice Sendak. Now a selected number of works are taken in to the art exhibition at Nucleus Gallery in California and THESE are the two pieces I made in a paper-cut form for the show.”

via Behance