Budget Friendly Crafts: Paper Mache Bowls
Papier-mâché, also known as paper mache, is a fun and simple activity for kids. You don't need many materials, and chances are you have everything you need at home already. All you need is water, flour, paper, balloons, and your imagination! Not only is it easy and inexpensive, but paper mache is also surprisingly strong and durable.
The Importance of Bad Art
In this blog post I wanted to explore the idea that art has to be perfect in order to be valid. Sometimes society has made it feel like being a good artist is just a natural-born thing, where you either have it or you don’t. You are either a creative person or you are not. Some biopics represent art like you just start creating and the ideas come pouring out and it is perfection at first stroke.
The Benefits of Art for Children
Arts & crafts have always been an especially fun activity for children of all ages, great for making friendships through shared interests and for strengthening family bonds, as it is a highly enjoyable activity for both parents and children alike... But did you know artmaking and creativity has many more essential benefits to your child's physical, emotional, and mental well-being than simply being fun and enjoyable?
Healing and Being Creative Through Art
Creativity is a great way to cope with stress, and in these challenging times I believe we can look to art and creativity as a way to express difficult emotions and restore a sense of calm. Artists are sensitive to the change in season and other people’s emotions, and over the years I have often felt the need to self isolate as I was too sensitive to some external situations. But art is a way to cope - and thrive - in a busy world.
Boost Your Child’s Brain Power with Art
As wonderful as art is on its own merit, as a creative and beautiful activity to be explored and enjoyed by all ages, it’s also important to remember that art practice and education can play a pivotal role in a child’s development. By practicing and creating art, children can develop a myriad of skills, such as problem-solving and critical thinking, and by studying art they can even begin to learn visually.
Golden Art - My Work
Usually I try and keep the focus here on my classes - which are of course incredibly important to me! But I’m also a practicing artist, and I know many of you are curious about both my art, and the life of an artist. So, in this blog, I’m going to tell you a little bit about my work, and what inspires it. While I was studying product and furniture design at Edinburgh Art College I was captivated by the ways in which an artist can capture light, and decided to try and repeat it within my own work as naturally as possible.
The Benefits Of Doing Art for Teenagers
We’ve often touched on some of the benefits that taking art classes and developing an interest in art can have for children, but this is also something universal, as children of all ages can benefit from flexing their creative muscles! And so in this post we’re going to look in a little more detail at how art can help teenagers, from a form of creative expression, to a skill to develop, to a way of helping with their emotional wellbeing.
Two Fun Outdoor Summer Art Activities
It’s great to be able to take advantage of the warmer weather and spend more time outdoors. And there are so many fun activities to be had, especially when it comes to art! So here are just a couple of art projects that are perfect for summer, and that anyone can have fun doing.
Art and ADHD
Art and creative practices can be beneficial for people with ADHD. I’ve written before about how creativity is good for children, and this blog is looking specifically at how art can help those with ADHD. ADHD is one of the commonly misunderstood conditions, and for this reason, it can seem like there’s an endless stream of bad advice and solutions that don’t take into account the actual lived experience of managing and thriving with it.
Colouring and Creativity For Any Age
The benefits and joys of colouring books . My classes may be for children, but creative expression is something that can be amazing for all of us to make time for! Of course, that last bit is probably the real issue: time. So many of us have hectic schedules, that finding the time needed for an artistic practice simply isn’t feasible.
Be Creative With Mixed Media Art
Creating art should be about embracing imagination without limitation, regardless of your age or skill level. After all, the world of art is a literal blank canvas for you to bring your own personality, ideas, and imagination to. And nothing embodies that more than the world of mixed media art. Put simply, mixed media art is a piece that uses at least two different mediums, with an emphasis on combining and experimenting between a variety of forms.
A Brief History of Blue
When it comes to colour there is so much that a specific colour, or even a specific shade, can invoke. And that is why it is easy to understand why painters and artists have always gone to great lengths to create and use colours in their work. While blue is easily seen in the sky and the water, blue has actually traditionally been one of the more difficult colours to procure and create. So in this blog let’s delve right into the fascinating history of the colour blue in art.
Animals in Art
Since humans (and artists) have existed, animals have been a source of inspiration. From art representing daily life, to myths and legends, to scientific depictions, to more abstract ones, animals have been portrayed many different ways in every culture on every continent. Art as we know it would not exist if animals weren’t a prominent subject for artists.
Summer Art Activities
When it comes to art, I’m all about fun over formalism! That means you don’t need to be an expert or perfect sketcher, but rather it’s all about loosening those creative muscles and exploring your imagination. With that in mind, here are a few fun activities you can do with your kids during the summer that'll help spark their creativity and give you something to do as a family!
Paul Klee and Gustav Klimt - Art History
One of my favourite things to do in my art classes is to take inspiration from the works of some of the most famous and important artists from the past, and see how we can use it to inspire our own creations! This is great fun, because not only does it help our own process, but it also gives us a glimpse into art history. Recently I’ve done classes that drew from the work of Paul Klee and Gustav Klimt — and in that spirit, here’s a little more about the work of both of these 19th and 20th century art giants.
The Origins of My Art
Artists are inevitably drawn to subjects that they feel a deep connection towards - we draw what inspires and matters to us. Often those connections are formed over an entire lifetime’s worth of experiences, creating a profound bond between an artist and their art. I find this personal element of art to be hugely important, which is why I want to talk a little bit about why I draw animals, and the connection I have to the natural world.
The Rhinocerous in the History of Art
On the 20th of May 1515, news of a remarkable sight was spreading across Europe: for the first time in over 1000 years, an Indian rhinoceros had been brought to Europe. In September of 2020, students in my art class made their own drawings of a rhinoceros. Totally unrelated? Not quite. As my students learned, that event triggered the first-ever woodcut print of a rhino. A fascinating link, and one that can tell us so much about art itself.
What the Zoom classes have meant to me
These have been a challenging last few months for all of us, so I thought I’d take this time to reflect on what has been one of the few bright spots for me personally, being able to host and run my Art Telly classes. Like many great things, these classes were born out of necessity more than anything else - needing to transition my classes to an online format. I decided to host them from my studio, with children (and sometimes parents) watching along at home. Since then, I’ve hosted around 60 of these classes!
How Art Connects People
I’ve previously written about how we can heal ourselves through art and how it helps children and how bad art can actually be good for you. In this post, I want to talk about how we connect with other people through art. It’s no surprise that practicing art has many benefits, for children, teenagers, and adults alike. While other activities, such as sports, connect us by a means of staying fit and healthy, art can have the same effect, just on our minds rather than bodies.