Mrs Maker's Projects

Bob, who is 6 years, has a deep fascination with physical geology and has a passion for collecting rocks and minerals. His absolute favourite gemstone is lapis lazuli. Bob's curiosity extends to volcanoes, lava, coastlines, and other geological wonders.  Recently, he embarked on a creative project with the intention of capturing the essence of science through art.  For his project, Bob envisioned a vivid science-themed painting that depicted the dynamic interplay of lava, solid rock, and the ocean.  He used acrylic paint and some brown gravel to bring his vision to life.  Bob's artistic process began with a sketch that outlined his work. He executed painting, starting with painting the ocean, followed by the sandy beach, and the molten lava with streams cascading onto the beach and into the salty water. To make his sandy beach more "real", Bob ingeniously incorporated brown gravel, which he then covered with shimmering silver paint. As a delightful surprise, Bob impr...

As part of our son's Marvellous Me week, I had the chance to visit his class and share something close to my heart: the origins of food crops, biodiversity, and the importance of crop and species diversity across ecosystems. I brought along a variety of apples, onions, and potatoes for the children to explore, with the help of my younger son. The kids were fascinated and even got to draw the fruits and vegetables we discussed. It was a wonderful opportunity to raise awareness about the importance of preserving biodiversity—something that will affect us all now and in the future. By having the children draw different types of crops, they engaged in a fun, hands-on way to learn about crop diversity and the richness of our ecosystems. It’s such a simple yet powerful way to teach these essential concepts!.  An easy way to teach kids about crop diversity is to ask them draw it!  

Bob (6 years, 10 months) is a Minecraft enthusiast just like his one-year older brother. They often play Minecraft together, because ”it's fun and we have a family account”, confirmed Bob. Boys also play Minecraft with Lego and other plastic figurines, which they received as a birthday gifts from their classmates.  Today Bob decided to paint his favourite Minecraft game tool: the Diamond Pickaxe. He tested different techniques (brushing and rolling). He thought that coating the canvas with a roller was fast and fun, so it was a winning technique. Bob also tried Jackson Pollockian dripping paint with stick technique, but not the other revolutionary techniques (splatter and action technique), that Pollock invented. Bob has already tried the action technique (see my previous post on Bob's take on Mona Lisa), and the splatter technique is something you would not want your child to try out in your living room.  Then we moved from traditional art making to the use of software i...

On 6 August 2014, when my son Xan and I were fetching vegetables from Jiřího z Poděbrad Farmers’ Market (Prague 2), Xan asked if we could buy sunflowers, too. “My favourite flowers are sunflowers because they are yellow and beautiful. Sunflowers are tall as well”, said Xan. I think most people would agree with that.  Later that day we took photographs of the sunflowers from different angles, just in case Xan, or his little brother Bob, would like to draw them later. Previously, the brothers had drawn vegetables, that we had bought from the market, so I thought this time would be the same. Indeed, it was! On 9 August, Xan started his sunflower project, and by 28 September we had the painting framed and hung on the wall. (A photo of the framed painting and a video of the project can be found at the end of this blog post).  We printed the photographs we had taken earlier on, and Xan was also using a tablet as he could zoom in to see the details. On a stretched canvas, Xan starte...

”This is called a rocket on earth, but when it is in space it's called a space ship. The stars are silver coloured instead of gold or yellow. The moon is made out of rock and dust. There is an astronaut inside the rocket. There is fire coming out of the rocket, so the rocket zooms to space. There's no gravity in space, but on the moon there is a little bit of gravity.”

Happy Holidays! I forgot to mail Christmas cards this year, so here is one via email and/or social media to all our friends and family! Why waist your money on buying printed cards, when you can ask your children to draw a unique design! You can teach your children to use Gimp (or other graphical design programmes) to make the layout for the card, too. Very useful project. 

Tonight, my oldest (age 6,5 years) drew some Red-bellied piranhas. Here are his fresh comments:  ”Red-bellied piranhas have snapping mouth, because they like to eat all the time. They are too hungry, because they have small sharp teeth. It means that they are fishers who are dangerous to small fishes. This means they eat small fishes. So, when they are too hungry they need to find small fishes or sometimes they eat fish eggs. Noin ne tekee oikeasti . That is what they are doing really. Now you know about Piranhas, the fishers. In some countries, these people who live in rainforests, they use piranhas for scissors. That helps rainforest people to live.”

My 4-year old son wanted to make some art, so I gave him an old scruffy shirt and a pair of scissors. With my guidance, he then carefully cut out the back piece of the shirt. Then I g ave my son a set of bullet tip fabric markers. He first wrote his name, then draw himself, mom , da d and his older brother .   He also draw our house with few windows , a door and steps upstairs, along with a slide and the sun and  some grass and flowers. Our 2012 season greetings cards – a reconstruction of the above painting – received a warm welcoming from family and friends.

We all know Leonardo da Vinci's (1503 – 1516) main works of art and inventions, but we don’t know what was his creative  modus operandi , or what went through his mind when he painted, for instance, Mona Lisa. Children are incredibly ingenious, cheerful and expressive when they are in a creative flow. This blog post is about our son Bob's (4 years, 8 months) reinterpretation of Mona Lisa. I hope you enjoy it, and that it inspires you do carry out similar art projects with your child.   "Leonardino da Vincino" is busy painting I have to say that the process of Bob painting the picture was far more fascinating than the actual finished painting. Children are born creative and expressive. The challenge is how to nurture and make the creativity and expressiveness last into adulthood and beyond. Day 1 We looked at a picture of Mona Lisa. First, Bob laid a large, stretched canvas (55 x 140 cm) on the floor and drew on it with a brown oilwax crayon. He was exhilarated when he...