Hazel and I visited a Yayoi Kusama exhibit in Los Angeles. We brought some friends who are not regular museum goers which made the visit very interesting. One doesn't follow rules well, one just walks quickly through and one has difficulty walking. Aside from that, the trip was amazing. The exhibit was incredible. If you get a chance, look at her Infinity Rooms online. She is brilliant! And, because were in Los Angeles, I got to see family.
We had done a project inspired by her dots right after seeing the exhibit. For October, we decided to highlight Yayoi Kusama and make dotty pumpkins. We used a bag and newspaper to make the base for each pumpkin and the kids covered them in plaster strips, painted them orange and added dots and designs. They learned a little about her life and art. We loved what the kids created.
Included in the monthly projects was our Triangle Cat. The kids were instructed to paint the background, add construction paper to make the cat and oil pastels to finish it off. We are always amazed and impressed with how projects are interpreted.
Sewing is always popular with our crowd. In light of Halloween, Hazel designed a felt cat. She cut all of the felt, packed a big needle and embroidery thread, fluff, thick yarn for the tail, and string for the whiskers. It brings us so much joy to see them show off their sewing skills. Each felt cat was slightly different due to positioning of the eyes, tail and whiskers. They were thrilled with the results.
Painting and drawing faces can be a challenge. We decided on a multi media portrait. Starting with a canvas, the children collaged paper. We used old sheet music, light colored pages from magazine and some decorative paper. After the collage was dry, out came the black ink. The portraits are pretty incredible.
The final project for the month was learning some vocabulary. They learned shade, tint, hue, monochromatic, and geometric shapes. The idea was to choose a color, put some in three containers, add a bit of white to one and black to another. The lightly drew some geometric shapes and painted using the original color, tint and shade. The result was interesting and lovely.
Brainstorming ideas for the month is fun. We have sheets of paper on one of the studio walls with what we have done, what we plan to do, and ideas that need to be formulated. This time of SIP has given us an opportunity to develop more material.
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