Seeds of Ideas

Tuesday was the last day of working on a wonderful "Seeds of Ideas" project with my good friend Kathy Holowko at Art Play in Melbourne. Kathy had been fortunate to receive a City of Melbourne Art Play grant to run the project with 100 students, and had very kindly asked me to be involved to talk about seeds and plants. There was a lot of collecting of seed, natural materials, and anticipation, and the project has kept me very busy over the last few weeks. The fact that I don't live in Melbourne made the kid/work juggle extra challenging. 

The weather was perfect and we looked set for a magical last day.

We had the Grade 4/5 school children for a day the week before, and they had learnt about seeds, patterns, art, sculpture, aerodynamics, nature, ideas and metaphors. The children made paper seeds and watched them fly, then created boats out of natural materials.

Here the children's boats are patiently waiting by the Yarra River to be set free. The best laid plans don't always run as smoothly as you might like. The children's bus arrived over 2 hours late, the bus company had forgotten the booking, then had to deal with vomit and tardy schools before finally picking up our children. There was a lot phone calls and anxious re-bookings. City River Cruises were amazing, and allowed us to change plans three times. The class teacher was also wonderful and very understanding.

All the while the boats caused no fuss and stayed looking their gorgeous selves. I am amazed what children will create when given some natural materials and the directive to make a boat. No two boats were the same and each school group produced a new technique or unexpected result.

Finally we arrived at our destination, Herring Island. I've never been so pleased to see a bunch of kids, they only just made it to the last ferry.

We held a small ceremony on the jetty, reading out the seeds of ideas that the children had created.  We then gave them a small envelope to put some seeds and their message inside, these were tucked carefully in the boats.

A swan watched over proceedings and the launching of the boats. It managed to score a few seeds from enraptured children.

Most of the boats floated well, the children watched them anxiously as much bigger boats threatened to crash into them.

After launching the boats we went for a nature walk on Herring Island.  Children were given a list of things to look out for, like Eucalyptus seeds, mushrooms, and birds that eat seeds. This succeeded in sparking their curiosity, and they kept finding new things and asking what they were.

Willy wagtails were frolicking around the Seaberry Saltbush. 

Herring island is an environmental and sculpture park, Kathy explained the art work on the Island and pointed out other artists use of patterns in their work.

Photo credit & link to some great pictures of the Island visit http://www.lizzieknz.com/2011/05/herring-island.html

 Andy Goldsworthy (for more on this artist and some great examples of Earth Art http://www.morning-earth.org/artistnaturalists/an_goldsworthy.html) is one of the sculptors whose work can be seen at Herring Island. Above is a cairn he created to represent growth (Herring Island is artificially created). After visiting his work Kathy discussed Land Art and Earth Art.  We then pulled out the non weedy materials we had brought from home so the kids could create their own piece of Earth Art, they also made use of natural materials that were lying around, with the instruction not to pick things as this was an Environmental Park and we didn't want to harm the plants.

Some children worked alone, some in groups. 

A few of the students wanted to take their work home, and struggled with it's transient nature.  It was interesting the way different children tackled the work. 

 I had a go at making a piece and a couple of boys sat with me and helped me finish it. Too sweet, the rose petals were added by one of the boys.  I think the kids enjoyed watching what we would do (I'm not an artist so this is well outside my comfort zone), and not being watched over while they worked. It was a pretty hot afternoon and this was a great restful activity.

How lovely to work with one of my oldest and dearest friends. We're scheming new things for 2012, hoping to make use of our awesome seed collection. Kathy has all manner of projects on the go and was busy scheming how to create an installation in her house when I left her, seeds on plates might have been part of the design.

 Kathy's creation.

In the end it was a magical day, and an incredible project to be a part of.

Getting Xmas Crafty snowflakes and egg cartons

I had the Preps for Junior Landcare this week and wanted to trial a craft activity first. Enlisted the help of my little ones to make paper snowflakes.  They're so much fun.  Such a joy to unfold.

The preps used some beautiful bright coloured semi transparent paper and I plan on stringing them together for the school fete. They were tricky to cut for little ones but they enjoyed talking about symmetry and giving the adults instructions.  A good lesson on how to use scissors for maximum cutting power was had. 

The kids also had a go at making flower book marks by bashing flowers with stones.

They made a fairy scare crow, put up crafts in the fairy garden, and helped get the vegie patch under control with some straw and newspaper.

There are so many snowflake tutorials and amazing patterns you can do but it's fun going freestyle and seeing where your imagination takes you.

http://jillilystudio.blogspot.com/2010/12/snowflake-tutorial.html

http://zoomdoggle.com/2010/12/make-nerd-flakes/

How cool are these!

 Also had fun making a fairy and xmas tree out of egg cartons with the middle one. Might be a fete activity. There are sooo many things you can do with egg cartons.

I like the look of these bells (click picture for link).

How awesome are these from Live Your Art? I'm a big fan of The Nightmare Before Christmas.

http://www.liveyourart.net/2011/09/egg-carton-creations.html

I went on a bush walk along the train line with the little one on one of the glorious sunny days this week. We brought a basket and gathered treasures. So many butterflies filling our skies this Spring.  When we got home I pulled out the little mermaid light box from the craft room.  This op shop treasure hadn't seen the light of day for a long time and had nasty batteries lurking inside, miraculously after a clean up and battery replacement it worked beautifully. It kept the bush walk joy going for a little longer. There were some amazing growths on gum leaves that looked like blueberries bursting open, perhaps a type of gall but they were quite soft.

for more Friday happenings

All Creatures Great and Small

The big kids climbed a mountain with their dad today, mum had the sniffles so she and little Bowerbird stayed behind. The big Bowerbird kids are great walkers and did an excellent job hiking up Mount Macedon, it helped that they had the company of friends to spur them along.  My lovely vegie group friends now have a once a month walk added to  our list of things to do together, I was sorry to miss the first walk although did a little bit of the start and shared the BBQ at the end.  The wild flowers are amazing this year, perhaps the wet winter, kind spring? In just a few short metres we saw Bearded Orchids, Milk Maids, Yam Daisies, Chocolate Lilies, Sun Orchids, Waxlip Orchids, Sundews, Paper Daisies...... I could keep rambling - shame I forgot the camera.


The big kids were feeling pretty exhausted by the afternoon and were after some TV time, but I managed to distract them with this activity.

A day at the races - take 3 beetles and four snails, draw two circles, watch and see what happens.

The beetles played dead for ages, as did one snail. One beetle disappeared down a crack, only to return later on. Little one kept putting obstacles in their way and they had to navigate the mass of fallen Wisteria blooms. Was pretty funny when a snail hitched a ride on a beetle.  Middle one told me that two of the snails were mating when they teamed up, I said I didn't think so and he offered to go and get the book from his library that talks of such things.

 

A great relaxing afternoon activity!  Middle Bowerbird won both races with his champion snail and beetle.

 I remembered to pick some flowers from my garden today, such a joy on the kitchen table. I just love poppies, each plant is a little mystery until those curiously shaped buds unfurl.

 We have some tiny new friends at our house.

A few months ago my friend gave me a bag of acorns for a seed/art project I am working on.  These seeds were placed in a big glass jar and put on display last week.  Little eyes were peering at our huge seed display when one pointed out that our jar had little critters in it.  At first I thought they were stick insects but they are actually baby Praying Mantis.  the eggs had stayed dormant in their acorn in a brown paper bag through the cooler months and had only emerged with the warmer weather - much to our surprise and delight.

image source http://www.raymondcostello.com/html/praying_mantis.html

These tiny guys are better than television, they are stalking aphids and sussing each other out, they can be cannibalistic so we are finding them new homes to separate them, in the mean time we squeal whenever they get close to each other.

Sadly we had room in our terrarium as this little caterpillar had passed away, we've been watching him for the last couple of weeks. 

 

 This is the face the little one pulls when she doesn't get her way.  She didn't want to let go of her little pet but I was worried he might have been getting too much love. I saw the exact same caterpillar today on the same plant I found this one on - a native bush pea that it blends in beautifully with.

Joining in with   follow the link for more great play ideas.