Cut/Torn Paper

 We have been experimenting with scissors and tearing paper to make many different pictures....

Wet Water Color

It was a rainy day so we did an exploration of wet paper with water color paints...........

Circles and color mixing

 

We have had such a great beginning to the school year experimenting with color and mixing two to create a third. We have been talking about the circle and practicing drawing circles and painting with circles as well. In between all of this wonderful exploration we have been searching for letters in the newspaper with magnifying glasses, looking at leaves up close, playing outside and drawing on the sidewalk.....
Fall is such a wonderful time of year to challenge our senses. The changing colors, smells of nature and temperatures in the air are invigorating. The lound crunch of leaves and animals scurrying about are noises we can hear before the calm of winter arrives.
I'm looking forward to the next few months of activity.

Artful Weeding

We have a backyard with little to no sunlight but lots of wet soil perfect for weeds..... Lots and lots of weeds. Last year we let them go wild and they grew taller than the kids. This year we are mowing them down. Although yesterday my two little ones decided to weed an arty path.

We are into creating, walking and drawing paths right now. Last week we went to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and walked the Labyrinth in the courtyard. This opened our eyes to where there are other patterns, paths and mazes around town. We also stumbled upon this link to a sand artist. He draws/rakes in the sand on beaches the most amazing ephemeral designs.  I'm sure there was a little inspiration for the weed path from this.

Art Scavenger Hunt continued....

A gorgeous day to spend 4+ hours at the Arboretum to finish the art scavenger hunt we started a few days ago!

 We also took some time to do the maze..

 Check out the fountain and fish

We voted on our favorites and "Poppies of Oz" was one of them...

 This was another....

 

We ended the day with tag. Could there be a more beautiful place to play tag?

Franconia Sculpture Park Adventure

We went on a fantastic field trip Saturday to Franconia Sculpture Park to celebrate my Mom's birthday. There was bluegrass music, plenty of outdoor art to see, delicious pizza from a homemade outdoor pizza oven and we met some wonderful people as well. Below are some pictures of the day. I brought pipe cleaners along in case we were inspired for some mini sculptures ourselves.....

Inspiration for a pipe-cleaner mini sculpture

Outdoor Sculpture

Today we had an outdoor art adventure to the MN Landscape Arboretum. There are 32 works of art scattered through the arboretum. We started a scavenger hunt of our own to begin to see them all.
The fish in the Japanese garden were our favorites so far......

A tiny bit of nature art on the side. The pattern on the caterpillar was an inspiration for a project we worked on later... (pictures to come)