Meeting the Architect
Antoni Gaudí is an architect, designer and the best known representative of Catalan Modernism, also known as Art Nouveau. All of his work is based on nature's forms, it's for this reason that all his architecture looks so familiar to us! Gaudí used his imagination to the utmost and this can be seen in his buildings and designs. This was the source of inspiration for our Artful Fall Big Kids Club!
We traveled to Barcelona and discovered Gaudí's masterpieces. Park Güell was our first destination: long columns, amazing balcony views, suns on the ceilings and the funniest salamander! Everybody was amazed! Afterwards, we talked about buildings like Casa Milà and Casa Batlló, their shapes and colors brought us to experiment with light and learn about Gaudí's mosaic technique called el trencadís.
This technique consist of collecting non uniform pieces of broken tiles, ceramic fragments or recycled art. They can be fitted into a drawn design or spontaneously arranged without having a prior pattern. We tried both methods!
Our Big Kids dyed pasta with food coloring and vinegar and created their own gecko's like the one that it's in the Parc Güell.
Another activity we did was to color in drawings based on Gaudí 's work patterns by following numbered instructions. This exercise helps children develop fine motor skills, explore their creativity using a legend, and uses mathematics and color recognition.
We also created some designs using real ceramic fragments and our own tiles that we made out of recycled CD! It was such a great experiment, the results were impressive! Can you tell the difference?
Light was another medium that Gaudí explored, La Sagrada Família's interior is awash in beautiful colors from the stain glass windows. Good things take time and the homemade light table is now at Buddings on Broadway!
Art is holistic, everything that surround us can be inspiring and reproduced in so many ways to express ourselves.
Every time that we are exposed to a challenge or new scenery our understandings change. This is why I like to suggest different activities and perspectives of concepts that are, for me, meaningful to learn. Children are ready to be excited and they are continuously showing us their curiosity.
When I was introducing Gaudí I wanted to show them that they can use anything to build a house or that they can touch the tallest building if they point to the top with their fingers. Pasta can be green and the perfect color for a painting.
Any experience is an opportunity and it's incredible when something catches our attention in such a way that we get stuck in this creative mode that make us feel so alive!
This November at Artful Fall
Pablo Picasso is the last artist that we will meet this season he brought a new and unique approach to both painting and sculpture and founded the art movement known as Cubism. Looking forward to seeing you every Tuesday at Buddings on Broadway and Wednesday at Storybook Buddings from 1:00 - 4:00pm!
Resources for Pablo Picasso!
Birds and Other animals - Pablo Picasso
When Picasso was a child he was already very observant. His father was an art teacher and often painted doves. One day he cut out a dove with a pair of scissors and it was simple and beautiful. This book shows the magic of fine art and its simplicity through animals sketches. Let's see what we can draw!
Famous Artists Picasso - Antony Mason
This book is about Picasso's life and work, it introduces all the techniques he used to create many of his famous pieces! Some of the activities that we will do were found here.