Be creative from early age

Art with young children

Today I have seen children in the nursery, who just received a toy iron and ironing board to play with. What an excitement and great fun to use an iron.
The positive extension of the iron could be added pictures of famous paintings of people ironing – men and women.
You can also encourage parents to take photos of themselves ironing at home and bring/email them to the nursery.

Introducing children to art from early years give them possibility to create and be creative.
It is also a good opportunity to encourage curiosity through conversation between adults and children, when they are waiting for their turn to play with an iron.

Examples of open – ended questions:
– What are these women/men doing?
– How are they dressed?
– Why did the artist paint them?
– Why aren’t they looking at us?
– How fast did the artist paint them?

You can leave some clipboards around and dry pastels in a basket
to encourage children to draw.

Children have the curiosity and confidence to try new things.
Children who are encourage to be creative approach things in novel ways.
It is not what they do, it is the way that they do it.

The Vintage Kilo Sale

The Vintage Kilo Sale finally arrived in London in 2013!

This Vintage Sale is a great opportunity to fill the wardrobe for very affordable price. The clothes are charge by weight, per kilo (sounds familiar?). You need to plan to spend there minimum one hour. If you have a good eye – you are lucky as there is plenty to choose from. You can dress yourself from top to bottom, hats to trousers and add some jewellery and accessories. You can find clothing from 1960’s to 1990’s. This time it’s on Saturday and Sunday, clothes are rotated and best prices on the end of Sunday.

My treasures:

Thank you Judy’s Affordable Vintage Fair http://www.judysvintagefair.co.uk/ for the free entry! I loved it!

Date for your diary – London Vintage Kilo Sale – Saturday only – 13th of April!
at Hakney Downs Studio, Amhust Terrace, E8 2BT (15 minutes walk from Hackney or Dalston).

LFW

London Fashion Week Autumn/Winter collection.

It was great to see the inspiration from 60’s – Mia Farrow- in Jasper Conran collection,

80’s inspiration – disco and summer of love – in House of Holland,

50’s/60’s inspiration in Anna Sui

and 60’s twist from Orla Kiely!

I also enjoyed Issa show inspired by Navajo American Indians traditional designs,
Burberry, Antipodium and PPQ collections.

Have a look:

I love watching LFW not only because of designs but also the music!

London by night

St Paul’s Station

It’s a must stop for tourists in London by day and night. You can visit many different places and spend almost all day in the area. If you arrive early – first after getting off the station cross the street and walk towards London Museum on St Martin’s Le-Grand. You will have to take escalators to go up to the museum.

If you check online what they got on that day you can find activities for children or you can just visit the museum and have a good time. The Museum tells the story of the city from the first inhabitants 450,000 years ago right up to the present times. It has a great collections of variety of objects and really nice Victorian gallery. You can even see a piece of London Wall at Noble Street, a wall build by the Romans, which protected the city.

It is worth to see. After a nice lunch and coffee at the museum walk back towards St Paul station however if you walk on the side of the Costa cafe you will see a small gate to a Secret London place – Postman’s Park. This place is famous for its Heroes’ Wall, people who died because of acts of bravery, usually involving rescuing children from burning buildings at the end of the 19th century. It’s really magical place with little pond and goldfish. The Park has its name after workers from the nearby old General Post Office, which was situated locally, spent their lunchtimes there, although the Post Office has long since gone, now city workers sit in the grounds amongst the flowers and greenery to eat their lunch.

Than walk back toward the station. You have two options. You can stop for shopping in a St Paul’s shopping centre – One New Change, had a nice meal at the top or go and visit St Paul’s inside. If you are planning the shopping you must go on the roof terrace to see this view:

This version of St Paul’s Cathedral was build after the Great Fire of London in 1666. Inside the famous dome, you can climb up a spiral staircase to reach the whispering gallery. Its perfectly round shape means you can actually hear someone whispering over on the other side of the room. The Golden Gallery has a 360 degree view across London! There are also graves of famous people – Horatio Nelson, Florence Nightingale and many more.

Then walk towards Millenium Bridge. On the left you will see a straw roofed building- Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and on the right Tate Modern.
If you have time you must see Tate Modern inside, on Fridays and Saturdays is open till 10pm. It holds fantastic collection of international modern art, exhibitions, free daily guided tours, interactive activities and many more attractions across six floors. Great views on St Paul’s from the top. Check the website what is on:

Have a look at Millenium Bridge and St Paul’s lights at night!

The view of London is fantastic from Millenium Bridge. On one side you can see Tower Bridge, the Shard and on the other London Eye and many more great London’s buildings. If you’re in a deep love you can also leave a love padlock.

Enjoy!

Becoming Picasso: Paris 1901

Just yesterday I was thinking about Pablo Picasso and today I found out about new exhibition:

at The Courtauld Gallery situated at Somerset House.

London is full of surprises and wants to bring the Paris atmosphere to life! Love it!

The exhibition focuses on early life of Picasso – It was the year that the ambitious nineteen-year-old launched his career in Paris with an exhibition that would set him on course to become one of the greatest artists of the 20th century.

His early paintings are very different to his later work. In this year Picasso was already in a position to create something new of his own – the long series of works known as his Blue Period. He was inspired by Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and Degas and he was transforming their styles in his own ways.

Some of his work from this period:

Tickets booked! Time to step back in time.

 

 

Mr Picasso

Time for Mr Picasso.
I remembered his paintings since I was a little girl and I never thought I will be able to see his work in real. Picasso is well known everywhere and perhaps people know all about him.

He once said: “If I don’t have any blue, I use red instead”, that is why I love when children drawing green elephants or red lions, it is all about imagination, not directions!

Picasso was inspired by many great artists and he interpreted their paintings in his own way.

Taking children to the galleries from a young age is very inspiring, fun and learning experience to ask children to draw what they see, it’s not about copying, but understanding artists paintings by reworking, changing and twisting them.

Examples from Picasso:

Pablo Picasso, Las Meninas (1957)  /   Diego Velazquez, Las Meninas (1657)

Diego Velazquez, Princess Margarita (1656) / Pablo Picasso, Princess Margarita (1957)

Pablo Picasso, The Matador (1970) /Edouard Manet, A Matador (1866-67)

Vincent Van Gogh, Self- Potrait with Felt Hat (1888) / Pablo Picasso, Man with Straw Hat and Ice Cream Cone (1938)

Lucas Cranach the Younger, Portrait of a Woman (1564) / Pablo Picasso, Portrait of a Young Girl (1958)

Henri Matisse, Nasturtiums with Dance II (1912), Pablo Picasso, The Three Dancers (1925)

Pablo Picasso, Portrait of Lee Miller a l’Arlesienne (1937) /  Photograph of Lee Miller

Child’s inspiration: 

 

Pablo Picasso, The Weeping Woman (1937) / Kacper (Builder kid), The Weeping Woman (2011)

Kacper (Builder kid), The Dancer of the Rainbow (2011),  Pablo Picasso, The Three Dancers (1925)

You can always find some of his work in Tate, such as:

My biggest dream is to vist MoMA and see for myself Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1881–1973)

Shoreditch Vintage Fair

Shoreditch Vintage Fair is always a great event.
You can find different traders every time, get vintage make over from Lipstick & Curls, listen to some vintage music and have some lovely cupcake, tea or coffee at Vintage Tea Room.
Today I found also a stall from Little Vintage – very cute clothes and small gifts for children and
English Rose Cosmetics – really nice new beauty line.

Here are some pictures from today’s event:

My treasures today:

Music from the event: