Handmade Vases – by Children of Different Age, or the 2nd Meeting of the Children’s Art-Group

On Friday evening, in joyful anticipation, I am going to the Art Store! There are so many things for art now! Wow! But this time I need some certain things – on Sunday children are gathering for the art meeting at our place…

Today our art-group consisted of 4 children: from 1,5 to 7,5 yr. At the beginning, traditionally, a meditation part: we are teaching the kids to work with their attention, to feel the vibrations. But all this – through beauty and joy! For every meeting we (Soniya takes an active part in this process try to decorate everything beautifully in our room. One of the elements which adds festive mood – flowers! 18-mo-old Soniya loves to visit the flower shop and choose flowers together with her mummy and then proudly carry them home. Vera with her two little ones also drops in at the flower shop and then Bazhena and Kirill hand tulips or chrysanthemums over to me when I open the front door for them In my opinion, the beauty of nature, even its small element, helps forming of the aesthetic perception of the world.

The calm part of the program gives place to games (Soniya’s toys attracts the elder kids ). And we also spontaneously turn on the video with the dance “Ranu Ranu” which causes real joy!

That was the dance we were trying to perform – watch the video

Both adults and children were dancing. Kids copy the movements so easily – one is just surprised looking at them! For the future, we decided to include some dancing element as a physical warm-up into all our art-meetings.

So what about art itself? Impressed by Natalie’s and Arseny’s experience , we also were making pen and pencil holders (but for us those were vases   ).

The technique is very simple: to make balls from modeling clay, to roll them out with a rolling pin through a plastic bag on a piece of cardboard, to decorate them with some balls of food foil and then to roll the cardboard in a pipe. For little Soniya, I was making the balls myself, she only stuck them to the cardboard. For the elder kids, the task was more complicated: we asked them to attach the balls to the cardboard not haphazardly but trying to follow their inner intuition of the combination and harmony of colours. Elder Soniya (7,5 yr) first made all the balls and then placed them on the cardboard in some composition.

Instruments:

• cardboard (the one we used was yellow on its both sides)
• modeling clay/plasticine
• food foil (for decoration)
• rolling pin, plastic bag
• sticky tape/glue

Our Tips and Tricks:

• As the cardboard was quite firm, there turned out to be curves on it when rolling it in a pipe. To avoid it, it was suggested to “make the cardboard round” first carefully pressing to some round surface.

• It was more efficient to use glue than a sticky tape. But after applying the glue, one should wait for some time pressing the edges one to the other.

• The balls can be placed on the cardboard not in an abstract way but in some picture. Kirill (3,5 yr.) spontaneously got a fish (his mummy helped him a bit ). You can make flowers, landscapes, animals, etc.

The last element

The vases are ready. But is it really a vase if there is no bouquet in it?!

A couple of days before the meeting of the art-group I collected some brunches of different trees (I tried to take only the ones which were broken by the wind). Winter came early this year. So, there are still leaves on many trees..

In our opinion, all the art works turned out to be very beautiful! And, the most important thing, each child knows that he was able to make the vase himself!

The last part of our meeting was, as usual, a substantial dinner …

Anastasia

Illustrations to the article

photos by the author

To read this article in Russian, please, visit here