Cool Colouring In

I just found this cool site with lots of free downloadable colouring in patterns.  It is called Patterns for Colouring
(of course, what else would it be called?).

Cool Art I like

See more of Mark Jenkins Street installations here.

This is the School of Art and Design Creativity Test.  The objective is to draw as many things as possible that originate from X’s or O’s. How far does your creativity go?

I like this idea.  I like interactive art, to see what people come up with.

What a great idea by Candy Chang .

Maps

This is a map by Adam Hayes.  He has started a project where ...

Each artist has responded to the task of making a map of somewhere that they feel they belong.

Responses can include maps of places they live or grew up in, maps of the future or even of fictional locations and even maps of nowhere...

I like this idea for an art project.

I also just came across Pikaland.   Too many things to look at.  Think I'd better turn off the computer before I lose another hour. 

How to steal like an artist

I just came across this and thought I'd share it as I liked it. It is by Austin Kleon.

This guy writes poetry and stuff by blacking out words usually in the newspaper.  What a great idea (not a new one as he points out).

I think I'll give it a try.  I also think a great thing to do at school! ( I am still always collecting teaching ideas!)

Are you an artist?

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up" - Pablo Picasso.

Gordon MacKenzie points out in his book Orbiting the Giant Hairball that if you ask a kindergarten class how many of them are artists, they'll all raise their hands. Ask the same question of 6th graders, and maybe one third will respond. Ask high school grads, and few will admit to it. What happens to us growing up? We begin to fear criticism, and tend to keep our creativity to ourselves. (from 1000 journals)

I love the 1000 journals project. What a great idea! I saw a documentary about it on TV ages ago and only just thought to look it up on the internet.  It gets me thinking of lots of ideas too! If you like projects there are some great sites full of ideas.  If I ever have the time to get bored I might do some of them but as it is there is not much spare time.  Oh well, one day......

Why is this stuck in the middle?

52 Projects
Learning to Love you More

Oh to be able to draw

If you haven't already, check out Gennie's Art Blog.  I love her arty style.

Kick a little stone

Kick a Little Stone

When you are walking by yourself
Here's something nice to do:
Kick a little stone and watch it
Hop ahead of you.
The little stone is round and white,
Its shadow round and blue.
Along the sidewalk over the cracks
The shadow bounces too.

by Dorothy Aldis

We went for a walk the other afternoon and Django was kicking a stone. He remembered this poem we like to read in a favourite children's poetry book of ours called  Here's a little poem .

Polly Dunbar is the illustrator and she has written other fantastic books too. I really love her illustrations,  I especially like Flyaway Katie.

One more fantastic story called Ideas Everywhere. Such a great book to read to kids at school (or at home) to help inspire story writing. 

More about trees

My mum emailed me this description of a tree....

"An old man, Wilf Drews (1909-2011)  died recently.  He  began a tree planting crusade around the collieries in the Hunter and in the 1950s he placed a plaque on a tree:

                        

 "A TREE.

Ye who would pass by and raise your hand against me harken ere you harm me. I am the heat of your hearth on cold winters nights, the friendly shade screening you from the summer sun and my fruits are refreshing draughts quenching your thirst as you journey on. I am the beam that holds your house, the board of your table, the bed on which you lie and the timber which builds your boat. I am the handle of your hoe, the door of your home, the wood of your cradle and the shell of your coffin. I am the bread of kindness and the flower of beauty. Ye who pass listen to my prayer,   HARM ME NOT I AM A TREE."

Wilf was a miner who left school at 14, after  45 years in the mines he became Australia's first colleriery gardener, an early conservationist and initiated a commemorative tree and plaque program for retiring employees....he sounds a very nice man....his obituary was in SMH 4/5/2011 page 20."

This is one of the amazing Root Bridges of Cherrapunji in north east India. It is made from the roots of the ficus elastica tree.   Trisso and I saw them on a nature show the other night. I wish I knew about them when I was in india - they look amazing.

This one is called the dancing tree.

A tunnel tree

What a cool bed!

This could go on for ever there are so many wonderful trees!

Last one, a knitted tree. That is a bit funny!

Walden, or Life in the Woods

My mum gave me a postcard with this painting (Collins St.,5pm by John Brack) on it.  It says on the back of the card "In the winter of 1955 John Brack stood in a doorway in Collins Street on successive nights between 4.45 and 5.30pm and observed and sketched office workers on their way home from work.  He commented "There are so many of us whose lives are encompassed by offices in the day and suburbs in the night, that it seems almost urgent for the painter to say something about it."

This painting fits neatly with the sentiments of Henry David Thoreau, who's book Walden or, Life in the Woods (published in 1854) I am currently reading.  He famously said "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

"Walden emphasizes the importance of solitude, contemplation, and closeness to nature in transcending the "desperate" existence that, he argues, is the lot of most people. Thoreau regarded his sojourn at Walden as an experiment with a threefold purpose. First, he was escaping the dehumanizing effects of the Industrial Revolution  by returning to a simpler, agrarian lifestyle. Second, he was simplifying his life and reducing his expenditures, increasing the amount of leisure time in which he could work on his writings. Much of the book is devoted to stirring up awareness of how one's life is lived, materially and otherwise, and how one might choose to live it more deliberately. Third, he was putting into practice the Transcendentalist belief that one can best "transcend" normality and experience the Ideal, or the Divine, through nature." (from Wikipedia)

It is interesting that all through the ages there are  people who question the life that the masses are living while others are happy to follow the prescribed path. I particularly like these paragraphs toward the end of his conclusion.....

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.  He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him......In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness"        and

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."

Trees mean life

Nelson is at the top of the mulberry tree.

A tree of life pillow I made for a friend this week.

A book I got for my birthday ( Bruno Munari - drawing a tree) and a tree collage idea from it. You start with a strip of paper for the trunk, then halve it to make the next two branches, then into quarters for the next four branches, then into eighths and so on. It worked really well and I think it would be a great maths lesson at school too!

Another tree painted on our toilet.

A favourite tree we can see from our veranda.

 I'd like to make a wishing tree, that looks like fun!

Herman Hesse has written a lovely passage on trees in his book Wanderings.  Read the excerpt here. 

This is our lovely friend Lulu with a beautiful lovemae tree wall sticker that her mum Peta makes.

An old favourite song Hairy Trees.

Cute picture from TheSeaKiwi

33dodo

Journals

Have you ever kept a journal? I do and I have, on and off since I was a kid.  I love them - they help me remember my life.  I have embarrassing teenage ones that I have felt like throwing away, very detailed ones from  overseas trips and others full of bits and pieces of my life - lyrics to songs I love, poems, quotes from books, adventures, inspirations, soul searching, contemplations of the meaning of life etc  Unfortunately since becoming a mum my journal keeping has been sporadic and certainly not detailed.  Seven years and three children have rushed by and I have not managed to keep much of a record of their childhood.  Whilst in the thick of it I feel I will never forget......but i know I will.

Anyway I recently (yesterday)  got a new book Drawing From Life - The Journal As Art by Jennifer New.  The author mentioned the three journals she now keeps - a work related one, another for recording her children's everyday activities and the third is digital  where she takes a daily photo of their domestic life. After reading this today I was inspired to embark on a similar project.  Mine is called fivephotos and every week I am going to take/choose five photos to depict our life that week.  It is too difficult to go backwards in time to capture past moments, instead I will start from now.  Lets see how long I can keep it up!

Dot. The world's smallest stop motion animation

Tree of life

I love this painting.  I think Gustav Klimt is a wonderful artist!

Cool Stuff

This is the work of Jonna Pohjalainen, who created coloured pencils from fallen trees in the forest.  Go to Streetart to have a look at a few others.

Now, this is a cool idea. Imagine driving around the country in a double decker dress shop! The perfect thing to do in your twenties with a friend!  (With a hula hoop)

Another Kate  leads a very colourful life!!

Another good idea

I like this idea. You could make all kinds of large pictures using  photos  - a tree, a rainbow, sun on the horizon, a flower....