{inspiration}

on a lovely afternoon

have a wonderful weekend!

~be well

art in action - miro

today i had another 1st grade art in action session.
again we used Miro's "People and Dog in the Sun" and created our own masterpieces with chalk pastels.

the kids came up with amazing creations and even more amazing stories behind the actual picture.

"bird face"

"the evil alien princess"

"a tree man"

the artist called this one "colors"

"the crown and the egg"

"a girl's face"

"a martini with ice cubes and disco lights above"

this is the picture and the word-by-word comment of a 7 tear old artist!

"purple cat"

"angry heart"

"eggs"

i also brought music to class today and the kids listened to soothing jazz while making their own abstract creations.
adding music is really a nice way to calm the kids and add ambience.

we did have each artist present their own masterpiece and tell the audience about it.
this has to be the best part of the entire session.
listening to a 7 year old explain his/her abstract painting to his/her peers and then have the audience applaud and show their respect to the little artists makes all the difference.
the kids just beam with pride when they show off their masterpiece and we adults enjoy the stories behind the creations immensely!

next week we'll have the Kinder kids study van Gogh's "Sunflowers" and my 1st. graders will work on Chagall "Me and the Village".

Crazy but super fun!!!

~ be well!

pretty in green

i know it's been slow going on my wonderful heart and soul works blog but i do have plenty of projects going ... too many i fear.

however i am almost done with this one and thought i'd give you a look at our beautiful Solstice Tree ... in his new green coat.

for those new to me and my stories, the Solstice Tree is a souvenir we brought home from our last trip to our beloved Tahoe retreat Sorensen's.
we were lucky enough to be able to spend our last christmas up there and we LOVED, LOVED, LOVED every second of it.

instead of cutting down a fresh tree we decided to build ourselves a Solstice Tree with the gifts from the woods. all these wonderful ideas, stories and the rich history behind the Winter Solstice can be found in this wonderful book.

we decided to bring the tree home with us and it's been the centerpiece of our home ever since.
it was lovely in red during valentines and now will change his coat into green for the month of mr. St. Patrick.

i started with making my (first ever) paper beads.
it took a while to scratch off one side of the cardboard to reveal the ripple pattern behind it.

i then cut the cardboard in stripes, rolled them tightly and tacked them together with hot glue.

et voila, we had our raw material, recycled cardboard beads.

little L and i poured all the green colors we could find out on the table and started dying our beads.

we added some sparkles ... ALWAYS!!!

one can never have enough sparkles in life!

we collected all things green and "stringable"

and made these wonderful, very green bead chains.

et voila, the Solstice Tree got his first green back.

some of the beads were turned into four leaf clovers.

and the tree was shining already, yet it still needed more ...

... gold! always add gold to the green for St. Patrick's day, as I was told by my big L.

so we covered the branches in shimmering, four leaf clovers (I splurged an bought a stamp press :)

and now the tree looks rather dashing in his sparkling green and golden dress.

now we have one, last piece missing.
the tree topper!

little L has been working on it quite a bit.
she "borrowed" a few cars from her sisters extensive car collection, collected all colors of the rainbow and  ...

created her very own rainbow

she added a wee bit of sparkle et voila ... a rainbow the topper.

we are adding some final touches to the rainbow and will reveal the final product as soon as it has been completed.

for now i hope you enjoyed our little craftiness and were inspired to add a little green gold and a rainbow to your life as well.

~ be well