This week the Friday group have had a lot of fun making their own potions. Everyone had two jars each and access to lots of different materials they could experiment with. We had water, cornflour, food colouring, glitter, flowers, bicarbonate of soda, lemon juice, feathers, washing up liquid, coffee granules, sugar and salt. One of the children had some bicarbonate of soda and lemon juice in their jar, whilst they were adding food colouring to it the potion suddenly started bubbling more vigorously and rising upwards out of the jar. The children noticed that the glitter tended to settle at the bottom or top of the liquid unless stirred. They also enjoyed playing with the cornflour, scrapping it off the bottom of the jars and watching it drip back in which we managed to capture in one of the photos.

After everyone had finished creating their potions they had a go at making some observational drawings. They had a choice of charcoal, pencil and pens. One of the children decided to experiment with dripping some of their potions on their page and enjoyed giving the spill marks an outline with a pen.

Next week we will be painting some fantastic beasts using watercolours.

This week our Thursday group had a lot of fun learning how to make their own lift the flap pictures!
Everyone started off with the stencil of a ship, which they then added rooms and decorations to using a pencil and ruler. Once this task was completed they coloured their ships in with a mix of brush-tip pens and water colours. Next everyone had a go at cutting out and sticking the flaps over the rooms they created. Some of the children also went back and added more to their pictures with the brush-tip pens after sticking all the flaps down.
We ended up with a pirate ship, sloth pirate ship, unicorn rainbow ship and a dragon ship!
The sloth ship has lots of different little rooms with different things happening, including one poor sloth crying “Help!” because his room is flooded! The unicorn rainbow ship had a carefully thought out colour scheme using colours that work well together with purple, the flaps were coloured in brown to make them stand out so people know what to lift up. The pirate ship had a lot of care put in to it to try and make it life like including a hammock which the child felt was in proportion to the ship, but unfortunately we ran out of time to finish off the decorative sails. The dragon ship has lots of pink baby dragons with some porthole windows beneath the flaps, it also had orange flags because the Mummy dragon likes orange.

Next week we will be making some jellyfish wind charms with pony beads.

This week we had a go at making our own lift the flap pictures!
Everyone started with a stencil of a ship, a pencil, rubber and ruler to make their secret rooms, draw their characters and add decorations to their ships. Once this task was completed they were given the option of watercolour paints, brush-tip pens and pencil crayons for adding colour. Everyone chose to use watercolour paints and the majority chose to use brush-tip pens to add details to their picture. After everything was coloured in they each had some paper to paint and cut into the right size flaps to cover the rooms, they then glued just one side of the flaps down so that they can be opened and shut.
We ended up with a wide variety of ships! There was an alien cruise ship, rainbow pirate ship, fairy rainbow ship, minecraft pirate ship and a mermaid party ship!

Next week we are going to make some jellyfish wind charms using string, pony beads and plastic pots!

Because it is July, the month Harry Potter was born, we have decided to have a Harry Potter themed art month! To start off with today we made some Harry Potter wands using sticks, string, buttons, hot glue guns, paint and glitter!
I made some example wands for the children to look at before they began creating theirs to help give them some ideas. Everyone thought string wound round the stick made the most interesting wand handle and came up with their own variations. One of the children thought it might be interesting to stick a pom-pom on the end of their wand as a pretend orb which fills with magic. Another child made rings of hot glue a different parts of the wand and painted the glue gold. One of the children got really ambitious and made a flare of magic coming out the end of their wand using hot glue, red paint and glitter. Creating the main body of the magic using hot glue took a long time and a lot of patience.
After everyone had finished their wands they had a couple of pretend wizard’s duels, showing off their memory of different Harry Potter Spells.

Next week we will be practing our observational drawing skills with a still life drawing of some jars decorated to look like potion bottles.

This week we made sock and stick puppets, everyone started off making a sock puppet first and then for their second puppet they could choose to make a stick puppet or another sock puppet (the mermaid puppet ended up turning into a cut and stick picture!
Everyone took a lot of care and attention in selecting the materials they wished to use. We had a box of buttons, some brush tip pens, felt and a box of different materials to choose from. The starting idea everyone was given was to make some sea creatures which inspired them to think of what animals they personally would like to create.

One of the children thought the feathers would work well to make their rabbit feel fluffy. Another child decided to make a magician’s rabbit with a sparkly tummy. We also had a fantastic snake with a funny red tongue, kindly worn by one of the guardians so we could take a photo. We also had a clever owl with feather wings and the front of the sock cut short to give him a tail at the back. One of the children noticed a blue sock had a texture that reminded them of the lines on a whale’s tummy in drawings, so she used a pen to make the lines stand out more and add a bow hole and eyes. We also had a lazy sloth with scratch string on his head that one of the children thought looked like sloth’s hair. We also had a mermaid that started as a stick puppet and evolved into a sticky picture, she had absolutely amazing sparkly hair!

Next week we will be making our own lift the flap ship!

The Thursday group had the task of drawing somewhere they know using only paper and tape during the first half of the session this week. We ended up with sunset in the countryside, home and a firework display!

Everyone had a lot of fun looking at all the different coloured and patterned tape, they also enjoyed practicing their scissor skills when cutting the paper into the shapes they needed. One of the children knew how to make a loop of tape to stick their paper onto the card without needing to put tape all along the edges. This child created the sunset picture and preferred the tape to not be visible unless they wanted it to make a particular image, such as sunrays or trees.

During the second half of the session the children were given the opportunity to use string as an additional way of making lines. The children thought string was amazing for drawing plants and animals such as hedgehogs. They all decided to have a go at trying to recreate their own gardens.

Next week we will be making some sock and stick puppets.

This week our 4-9 year old groups have an interesting challenge! They need to try drawing a picture without a pencil, pen, pastel or any other mark making materials.
For their first drawing challenge they had to draw a picture of a town or city using only scissors, paper and tape. Everyone rose to the challenge and we got an interesting variety of pictures including a park, garden, holiday villa, tower block, house by a lake and a city on bonfire night.

The holiday home picture was inspired by one of the children’s recent holiday, they stayed near the sea and said the stars were really bright at night. They also said that the flower garden was inspired by a hill covered in flowers they walked up.

After they finished the tape and paper pictures the children had a go at drawing using tape and string. One of the children said it was a lot harder drawing with string as you needed lots of tape to stop the string moving. The children had the choice of drawing whatever they wanted with string, from windmills to pandas to people.

Next week we will be creating some puppets, the children will have the choice of making sock and/or stick puppets.

This week we started our final piece for our illustrative book project. We ended up spending most of the session measuring out and cutting the paper for the books to the right size, the last part of the session was spent on painting some of the backgrounds and covers.
The ‘L’ shaped book is going to be folded up to make a concertina book that you gradually open up, the book is going to be about the places the creator has visited and wants to visit in the future. The side shown in the photo is going to feature an airplane in the sky and a cruise ship in the sea. The information and illustrations of the countries will go on the opposite side.
The red and yellow book is going to be about the creators favourite footballers on their favourite football team and the different places they all came from.
With the most time consuming part – measuring and cutting the pages – finished we should be able to finish off the books next week.