Tales from our table #3
Sushi, Arctic Worlds and Painted Pebble Pets - This months creative projects; successes, failures and the mess left behind.
In these monthly tales from our art table (aka. The Kitchen Table), I hope to share an honest insight into the creative projects we embark on; successes, failures and the mess left behind. Creativity is at the heart of our family life, not just literally because it takes over the place where we eat, sit and talk, but also in the way we live and approach learning together. It permeates everything; mathematics, science, literature, the way we fix things that are broken and solve problems together as a family. So inevitably the paint covered brushes of our artworks will be mixed with the politics of our daily lives in these stories from our kitchen table.
When writing these tales, I hope to find a balance between sharing an honest insight into our life whilst also respecting the privacy of my children. I will try to focus on my story; their story is theirs to tell. For some context, I have two children, H who is nearly 10 and F who is 6. We currently live life without school in South Australia, along with my partner.
(Note: In these posts I occasionally share Amazon affiliate links so you can find the books or art supplies we use. But if you can, please consider supporting your local bookstore or art supply shop.)
This month has been a minimal effort craft month in our home. I don’t have any amazing ‘must do’ art activities or crafty parenting hacks to share with you. I’m not professing to know how to improve your child's fine motor skills or teach them early literacy skills with some cunning use of balloons, pegs and shaving cream. What I will share is an honest view of our family life along with a few creative projects we embarked upon. Maybe this will give you a little inspiration, maybe it won’t. What I do hope it gives you is the knowledge that family life is often hard; ours included. We argue regularly, my children fight and our life is far from the harmonious, beige linen clad and barefoot ‘ideal’ that is often shared on social media.
This month has felt like I was fighting my way upstream. Things felt hard and I am tired. I lost my temper and said things that I’d rather not admit let alone repeat. I have apologised many times. My children’s moods feed of mine. If I’m short tempered with my son, he will then take it out on my daughter who in turn takes it out on me. Sometimes we get stuck in these vicious circles, just not being very nice to each other.
PROJECT - Colouring in sheets
When I first began facilitating creative workshops and making art at home with my children, I was so pretentious about colouring in books. My feelings were along the lines of ‘where is the creativity just filling in the spaces with colour?’ I wanted my children to think outside the box, to not be constrained or limited by a pre-designed image and be inspired to create their own art. I had high ideals.
Through my daughter, who currently loves colouring, I am changing my mind. Colouring brings her joy and relaxation, we now often sit together, colour and chat. With all our arguments this month, these moments of connection have brought us much needed calm. I love it when our young ones teach us with their wisdom.
Recently I have been learning how to use Adobe Fresco, a digital drawing app, and have been creating a fun new range of printable activity sheets for my business MINI MAD THINGS. Lots of these printables are available to download for my paid subscribers here on Substack. My daughter has been testing out these new Australian native bird colouring sheets, I love her creatively colourful lyrebird.
PROJECT - Pebble pets
This month I have really been lacking creative inspiration or the energy to launch into any epic projects. Painting pebbles is a classic craft and one that we have come back to time and time again. With a friends birthday party last week, my children decided to make super cute pebble pets as gifts for their friend, complete with little cardboard beds. This project was entirely self-directed and executed, making it just perfect for my current absence of creative energy.
To paint their pebbles, they used a mix of acrylic paints and acrylic paint pens. The beds were constructed with cardboard, fabric and hot glue.
PROJECT - Arctic world
This was another project that was envisaged and created solely by my daughter, with just a little help from me to find materials and cut the cardboard trees with a craft knife. Her idea was to make an icy landscape and home for her toy polar bear.Â
My daughter had a clear idea of what she wanted to create. However, when she described the process she had planned for decorating the igloo, I knew it wouldn’t work. Instead of allowing her space to try, fail and learn, in my irritable mood, I stepped in. I knew it was the wrong thing to do but I couldn’t help myself from trying to control the process. Under the guise of thinking I was stopping her future upset, I imposed my ideas which caused an argument and dampened my daughter's enthusiasm for her project. She told me, ‘It’s no fun making crafts with you when you control everything.’ Again, I was schooled by my daughter. Fortunately, after my apology, she was still keen to finish her Arctic world the next morning.
Constructed from cardboard, a paper bowl, cotton wool and felt; she created a pretty cool Arctic world. The ice house even lifts up to reveal a little bed, complete with a mini soft toy for polar bear to cuddle while he sleeps! I love projects like this that inspire imaginative play as well as helping to develop craft making skills.
This might not look like the most exciting, beautiful or elaborate creation, but this is what craft looks like when it has been made by a 6 yr old. So often I see elaborate activities shared on Instagram, professing to be children’s crafts, that no child would ever be able to recreate. Two of my favourite Instagram accounts, that share awesome child-made art, (and who also have fantastic art books), are Art Bar Blog and Purple Twig. Their books Art Workshop for Children and Drawing Workshop for Kids are available from my online store.
PROJECT - Pretend sushi
Creating pretend sushi was one of the most fun projects we embarked on this month and based on a current area of interest for both my children, Japanese culture. As part of our home education life, every few months we collaboratively select a country to explore, and this time our focus was on Japan. The exploration and learning is very self-directed with me there to research, make suggestions and facilitate my children’s ideas. This can involve watching movies or documentaries, reading stories set in our country of choice, learning about mythology or folklore, looking at our atlas, learning language or visiting restaurants and festivals. One of our favourite activities is to go to supermarkets that sell food from the chosen country and buy lots of snacks. It's such a fun way to taste different flavours, look at foreign language text on the packaging and learn about different cultures.
My daughter loves imaginative role playing games and regularly sets up shops or restaurants, so I suggested we make pretend sushi. The project was a big hit and inspired lots of play. To create the sushi we used felt, fabric scraps, cardboard, foam packing material, paints, beads, yarn and glue. Each mini crafted mouthful of food looks like a delicately decorated gift.Â
Books we have enjoyed this month:
Following on from our interest in Japanese culture, we loved the books I live in Tokyo by Mari Yakabayashi and All About Japan by Willamarie Moore. Both of these books give an interesting insight into Japanese traditions as well as modern culture. We also enjoyed the books Peach Boy and Urashima Taro which include lots of Japanese folklore stories for children.
My daughter, who is 6 and learning to read, is absolutely loving the Barb the Brave graphic novel series by Dan & Jason. I find them pretty funny too. Barb and her band of misfit Zerks, which includes a yeti called Porkchop, have to fight against the evil Witchhead to save their friends. She loves the stories and illustrations, which are inspiring her to want to read more independently.Â
My son, who is 10 and an avid reader, is also really into graphic novels. His favrourite of the moment is the City of Dragons series by Jaimal Yogis and Vivian Truong. He described them for me as ‘Very epic. Full of dragons and mystery’.
Final thoughts:
Recently I have been feeling the ebb and flow of creativity, some months I’m full of inspiration, others I feel like I have nothing to give. This month I have been working on empty.
Reflecting on the discord that has occurred in our home for the last few weeks, I want to share with you that sometimes things are hard and that is OK. Our family lives don’t need to be perfect.
Also, when life is busy or we are tired, art at home doesn’t need to be elaborate; colouring or painting rocks is totally fine, or we can just ditch the crafts for another time when inspiration and energy returns.
To end my reflections with love, this morning I found a note from my daughter with a pictorial list for a mummy and daughter day she is planning. We may argue, but we have a lot of love too.
Time to rest and reset.
Thank you for reading this months ‘Tales from our Table’.
Eleanor x
My monthly ‘Tales from our Table’ articles will always be free, but if you are looking to more creative ideas, to delve deeper into art techniques or to receive free printables, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to Creative Spaces.