Wednesday, November 7, 2018

Sewing workshops and testing a new medium: tempera paint sticks. 

TEMPERA PAINT STICKS
​With all of the big drawing children have been doing on large paper, we adults started wondering what media would best support this large mark-making. So today we tested tempera paint sticks to get a feel for them and see if they might be a good fit.

Grace made bold marks with the creamy paint sticks all around the border of her paper.

Louise said, "It's like lipstick," as she worked.  When Louise was finished with her picture she said, "This is the street (gesturing to the trail of bold colors) and that's all of us (waving her hand over the line of shapes boxed in by lines) wearing silly faces and silly eyes." When asked if it was all of us, like in KW, Louise continued, "Yeah and these are things...our car and our jungle gym and our park." Louise described the line around KW, "That's our house. No, that's a airplane. We're flying to Bethany Beach and Disney World." 

Sam drew for some time. He  explained his drawing, "This is a volcano." While adding brown marks he said, "This is the mud!" Sam added black, "It exploded on the black and this (the gold and silver part) is the exploded part."

SEWING WORKSHOPS
We worked in two areas with sewing today: hand and machine sewing.  All of the children worked at hand-sewing. 

Grace explained sewing, "You poke in and out, in and out."

As Sam sewed, he said, "My shirt is fabric."

Tegan spent most of the workshop time hand sewing stitches around the flower-pattern on the fabric she chose making a grid- or quilt-like pattern. 

Grace and Louise had their first go at sewing on the machines. They listened and paid close attention to the steps, learning how to lift and lower the foot, turn the knob to move the needle, place their fabric, and sew with the pedal. Louise tried first, then explained the steps to Grace. As Grace became for proficient with the steps Louise, excitedly declared, "You're getting the hang of it, Grace!"

P.S. In case you hadn't figured out whose message box would be full today it was Molly! We said, "Happy Birthday!"to her  in messages and again at lunch today. Molly was so happy to find the surprises in her box.