Christmas at the Toy Museum

S and I spent the day at The Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green this week.

We used the book "Christmas at The Toy Museum" by David Luscas (ISBN 978-1406324594 ) as a starting point for a Christmas themed hunt.

A Christmas at the Toy Museum Hunt

In the story, the toys wrap themselves up as Christmas presents when they realise that there are none under the tree for them. To hunt for the toys in the museum I put a picture of each of the toys in a small wedding favour box and placed them in a bag to be selected at random.

We then looked for the toys in the displays. Next to each toy was a letter and it is here that we combined our own homemade hunt with a Lost in the Museum trail produced by the museum. 

Once we had completed the trail all the letters we had found spelt "found you".

At the end of the book, Bunting the Cat, a prime time character, still doesn't have a present to unwrap. A helpful Angel presents Bunting with a beautiful golden box which contains a twinkling Christmas star. 

I presented S with a golden box at lunch which totally suprised him.

Inside not a star but a horse puppet. S loves the rocking horses in this museum!

He even did an impromptu puppet show on the steps!

What Christmas themed books have you adapted at a museum?

Exploring Light in the Museum this Autumn

Using light in paintings as an inspiration for our own work

During this late Autumn period, here in the UK, our working world starts and ends in darkness. Whilst we have had some beautiful Autumn days with the sun warming rustling leaves and beautiful dew tipped spider webs spectacularly glistening, our extended darkness has been an opportunity to explore light in a variety of forms.

We attended the Diwali family celebrations at The National Gallery this November. A day filled with exploring light in the museum, using the paintings as sources of inspiration and celebration.

The boys particularly enjoyed the Magic Carpet story inspired by Rembrandt's oil painting entitled "Belshazzar's Feast", a painting based on the Old Testament Book of Daniel (5:1-6, 25-28). With his guitar and a few props, such as a crown and a jug, the story teller shared the tale of Belshazzar, King of Babylon, who blasphemously served wine in stolen scared vessels at a lavish banquet. The painting depicts the moment when a hand appears and scribes the phrase MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN,  understood by Daniel to mean "God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting; your kingdom is given to the Medes and Persians", That night Belshazzar was slain.

After sharing the story our host encouraged the children to identify aspects of the painting that appeared in the story - the jug, the hand, the king himself and simultaneously the use of light and dark to illuminate and heighten this divine intervention.

Mid story telling flow.

Exploring the guitar after the story.

We also spent part of our day on a light trial around the gallery. Below is a list of paintings on display in The National Gallery where light and dark can be explored.

Claude, Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheeba, 1648

Guido Reni, The Adoration of the Shepherds, about 1640

Harmen Steenwyck, Still Life: An Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life, about 1640

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, The Supper at Emmaus, 1601

Claude Monet, Water-Lillies Setting Sun, about 1907

Pieter Codde, A Woman Holding a Mirror, 1625

The boys took inspiration from the paintings above to create their own illumines picture.

A cut this shape from a folded piece of black paper. He chose "pinky" tissue paper to attach to the back.

All the children's work was displayed on an illuminated globe which did a tour of the gallery at the end of the day.

S interpreted the task in a different way, using the dark as the main focus of his picture and the light as the background. He was very specific with what he wanted to do and how it should be displayed.

All the pictures looked stunning amongst the twinkling fairy lights. The process of using tissue paper also connects to our lanterns which we use at various festivities this time of year.

The lanterns are made from all food jars which have a twisted wire handle. The boys were around 18 months each when they made these and enjoyed the experience of pasting torn pieces of tissue paper onto the side with glue. 

Little S making his lantern in 2012.

The glue glaze has protected the jars and saved them shattering from many drops onto hard surfaces! Inside we put 2 LED night lights so it is safe for the boys to carry around.

A glowing lantern on Bonfire Night 2012

This is A on his way to the November 5th Bonfire Night celebrations at Grandad's house this year.

How are you lighting up these dark Autumnal nights?

Walking through the jungle style museum hunt

On our visit to the Fitwilliam Museum today we played a game based on the book "Walking Through the Jungle" by Julie Lacome (ISBN 9780744536430)

On a previous visit I had taken some pictures of jungle-type animals and stuck them into cards with a clue to solve. I read the clue to the boys and they had to hunt for the animal somewhere in the gallery. We always had the picture to check if they weren't sure. After playing it once S wanted to have a go and told us the rhyme.

He then compared the picture to the artefact to check it was correct.

It was great fun and a lovely way to mix art and stories. I also managed to snap a few more pictures ready to make my next game!

A Portrait Trail

S has been learning about portraits at school and so we decided to visit the National Portriat Gallery in London.

We did a family trail as suggested on their website which the boys thoroughly enjoyed.

We spent a lot of time discussing each portrait - who might be in it, where they were, how they were positioned etc, in preparation of making a photographic portrait of our family on our return.

Here the boys are discussing some of the paintings.

"The Fourdrinier Family" Attributed to John Downman, circa 1786

"The Capel Family" by Cornelius Johnson, circa 1640

We marked off what we had seen on the map and covered a good range of styles and eras.

The boys had a go at making their own portraits using the materials the gallery provided.

"It has two noses and green skin mummy" commented S. "Really?" I replied.

And here is where S got his inspiration from!

"Allen Jones" by Allen Jones 1959-1960

S continued his drawing in the restaurant at lunch time, "It's a chef".

"this is it's bottom" S shows me, pointing to the 2 round circles - inspiration from drawing the Matisse sculptures in France. 

And our finished family photo portrait - including Pudding the cat. 

S positioned us all- he was very keen to stand leaning against something, like he had seen in the "The Fourdrinier Family" portrait.

Turner's Watercolours - painting in the cafe

One of our most frequently visited museums is The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. 

They are currently showing a watercolour exhibition which includes some less often seen pictures by Turner. 

After spending some time looking at the pictures; the colours, shapes and identifiable objects (horses are always popular for the boys to look for) we went to the cafe and had a go ourselves. What was so fabulous was the short space of time between seeing the real things and having a go ourselves. Obviously we would not cause any harm to the gallery or paintings but whilst waiting for our delicious lunch to arrive we whipped out some paper, a tin of watercolours and a couple of pots into which I poured some water from the one the boy's drinks bottles, and we had a go.

A's face sums it all up - excitement and wonder as the brush passed over the paper leaving a watery coloured trail.

Being watercolours they had dried by the time we had finished our lunch. The whole kit was easily packed into my handbag and we went on our way, stopping to photograph our master pieces next to the watercolour stand in the shop - the closest we could get to photographing the real pictures!

Fantastic Friday - Statue Posing

Whilst walking through a gallery in The Fitzwilliam Museum, S stopped suddenly, bent over with his hands on the floor and shot his leg up in the air. It completely took me by surprise until I noticed the sculptures on the stand above.

I love the spontaneity and making sense of what he saw by having a go himself - right there next to the sculpture. 

What sculptures have you posed as?

Summer Festival - reenacting visual art

One of our favourite museums is The Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green. This July we went to their Summer Festival which was largely a celebration of music and dance from around the world. 

The museum is set in a beautiful building. The acoustics were amazing, particularly when the South London Samba band played - you definitely felt the music move through your body as the drum beats echoed and filled the cavernous space.

The boys were equally transfixed by the folk band "Tragic Roundabout" which featured a clarinet, one of S's favourite instruments.

I particularly wanted to see the Ecuadorean dancers, having spent some time teaching in coastal Ecuador before we had the boys.

Papa's favourite act was the juggler who put on a silent movie style show.

Without any prompting when we got home the boys started to reenact lot of what they had seen.

First was the samba drums. The boys stepped side to side in rhythmical jumps, their hands banging down on a imaginary drum, the beat coming from their voices.

S then wanted to be one of the Ecuadorian dancers who were adorned in flamboyant bird headdresses.  He used his owl suit which consists of an eye-patch mask and a cape wings. We put on some Latin music and they moved around the lounge, mimicking several moves they had seen the dancers make.

The juggling came the following day when S wanted to reenact the tricks the juggler performed where he catapulted teaspoons and sugar cubes into tea cups followed by flipping over a tea tray with its contents intact. 

S set out their play tea set ready to start. We talked about how maybe the juggler started with just one or two things and built up to a whole tea set. With this in mind S and A chose a single teacup with which to practise with. 

What visual arts have you re enacted at home?

Painting with Scissors

By S.

Whilst on holiday in France we spent a day at  Musée Matisse, Le Cateau-Cambrésis. The museum was very welcoming, particular with S and A, giving them pencils and an artist's pad to take with them around the museum. 

We started with the Matisse rooms although there were exhibitions on Herbin and Genevieve Claisse to name but two. 

S was keen to start drawing and stopped at a picture to draw some flowers in a vase. 

 

We have been sharing the books "The Little Matisse" by Catherine de Duve (ISBN 9-782960-040678), "Jazz" by Henri Matisse (ISBN 0-8076-1291-X) and "Snail Trail" by Jo Saxton (ISBN 978-1-84780-423-4) at home and it was very exciting to see many of pictures in the books hanging on the gallery walls.

 

Whilst walking through the gallery it was clear to see how Matisse's style changed over his life. We spent a long time in the cut outs section.

 

A was very quick at spotting the pictures from "Jazz" hanging on wall. He could identify shapes and patterns in them too.

S enjoyed the sculptures and wanted to draw them.

Later in the day we had a our own go at painting with scissors.

A has only been using scissors for the last couple of months so he needed high levels of concentration to make snips on the card and to cut pieces off.

S was quick to get cutting and began to arrange his shapes on the paper before using large amounts of glue to stick them into place. He wanted to expand his picture beyond the scope of the A5 paper, and why not?! In fact his words were "I wish we could do this forever!", as he chose further colours to cut and stick.

Some stunning results - we'll definatelty be painting with scissors again!

By A

By S

By Papa

 

By Mummy

 

The boys' pictures are now hanging, framed in their rooms.