moopy & me

Catching up

I have a student who's mother is very clever and knows me too well..... she found this (and the one below) adorable 50's vinyl night light for me whilst on one of her op shopping adventures... I'd love to say I found them but I just don't seem to have the time these days to go op shopping.... I really need to book myself in for a session! How satisfying it must be to find such treasures.

Thursday Nights at Nest have been a blast these last few weeks.... The 'gals' and I have spent a couple of weeks crocheting Camilla Creatures (pattern found in this book, to purchase if you are super quick here) and now we are screen printing up a storm with the Gocco. In a few weeks time we are going to practice some of the simple printing techniques (such as monoprinting & faux lino cutting) that I usually do with the children... the mums are getting jealous of their kids having all the fun, so we will get out the inks and get messy too!

These are a couple of the silk screen prints the kids did towards the end of last term... done with stencils not chemicals... so much fun and the results are stunning as you can see.

Here are a some pics of the new artroom (some what finished...) I still have a while to go before it and the shop are how I had planned...

Moopy Bunny has taken over my shop! There are four or so stretched prints still available (for those of you who live near enough, sorry no online sales)

A little crafting

for a little fellow, Master H...

I have been making so many other lovely things lately but sadly I can not share... they are all for other peoples top secret projects..... it is so frustrating ... because I don't get much time to do anything extra and therefore the blog is a little bare of craft... I can say that I have been screen printing up a storm with my dear good friend Amy.... (you can buy her adorable funky brooches here, at the Hive Gallery in Canberra and Wasabi in Norwood SA) ... and we will share very very soon!! I am super excited about this new textile/toy/products project.... I would have to be one of the worst people at keeping secrets, so I won't be able to keep quiet for much longer...

Nest Studio art class #1

Monoprinting

I often get requests for online art classes for those of you who don't live here in Adelaide... so I am going to do my best at posting a few of my favourite little projects for young children over the next couple of months. They will be short and hopefully something you will feel comfortable doing at home... Of course, in Nest classes we go into much more depth and don't only focus on the method as done here... you could go for a walk or read a favourite book etc .. to get imaginations flowing.

Step 1 you will need :: block ink (it is sticky not runny), ink roller, paper, plastic sheet (or plastic placemat you can ruin), pencil & butter knife

Step 2 Using your butter knife, spread a large grape sized dollop of ink onto the plastic sheet

Step 3 Roll the ink gently in an up/down rolling motion, until the ink has spread the width of your roller

Step 4 Now roll the ink in a left to right motion until you start to smooth it out over the length of the plastic sheet

Step 5 Aternate this with the up/down motion until the whole sheet is covered nice and smoothly and thin

Step 6 Gently place the paper over the ink covered plastic sheet, DO NOT TOUCH the paper as it will leave big fat finger marks.... you may like to hold the paper down in the corner where there is no ink for your little artist when they begin drawing. Now this is the fun part.... START DRAWING (but remember not to touch the paper, show your child how to hold the pencil upright so that their little hands don't rest on the paper... although sometimes this can make for a nice texture)

Gently pull the paper away and presto! a really stunning monoprint appears, this photo does no justice to the delicate texture that the ink creates under the pressure of the pencil.

Try using different things to draw with (fingers, sticks..) and you can let this dry and get out other ink colours for a layered ..two/three/four coloured monoprint. Lily went ahead and used watercolour pencils to add some colour to her prints :: Above print is a cat with lovely long whiskers :: Top is another cat but this one has many wings for flying.... next to Lily on her first day of "proper" Kindy this week.

I have so much fun with my Moopy's art ... here is the "flying cat" with digital colour added and printed up on my trusty bubble jet.