February Half Term – Saturday

Last Saturday I went on the Hype walk! Hype is a great app, which tells you what is going on right now in Shoreditch. I love the reminders on my phone as recently Hype is adding some live Street Art, what is a great if I’m at work I can always check it out later when I’m finished. Hype is all about local events from art to music, food, parties and many more. Hype tour was organised to show people local art and tea/coffee places and to meet up some new people on the tour. So if you don’t have anyone to go on this tour, don’t worry it’s a great place to talk to people. It is a 4 hour tour!!! Definitely worth the money and I recommend to anyone! So check it out for yourself: Hype App

Our lovely tour guides!

Milk Tea and Pearl  Our first stop was in Box Park to try some bubble tea. It is a Taiwanese tea with choice of natural flavours. Toppings are great as you can actually eat them and they taste great, such as Tapioca, Lychee Jelly or Strawberry Pobbles. My tea was cold, great refreshment! More info: Milk Tea and Pearl

Tom Lewis Tom Lewis displays his artwork in one of the units in Box Park. In his work you can find strong elements of Manga. Fantastic display of paintings, prints, posters and sculptures. More info: Tom Lewis

Phlegm in the Howard Griffin Gallery – more details soon Maiden If you are looking for an original gift for someone, that’s a place to stop. I couldn’t resist and bought some light switch stickers, do I need them? No, but they are so fun. More info: Maiden Shop

Jones Family At this stop we learned about coffee, what’s a difference between robusta vs arabica. I drink coffee every day and actually it was quite interesting to learn some more and to taste for myself the robusta coffee, which is less acidic, but with a greater caffeine punch! On top of the coffee of our choice we had an amazing strawberry cake! yummy!! More info: Jones Family Project

Pure Evil Gallery and Department Store – more details soon  Rivington Place Rivington Place is based in the RIBA award-winning building designed by David Adjaye and it’s open since 2007. It’s an free gallery, with exhibitions and events. In the building you will also find education space, cafe, bookshop and Stuart Hall Library. Till 7th of March you can find exhibition “When Harmony went to Hell” Congo Dialogues: Alice Seeley Harris and Sammy Baloji. More info: Rivington Place

C215 in the StolenSpace Gallery – more details soon  Cult Mountain Our last stop! I have to say that I passed that place couple of times and I never went inside. After visiting now, I’m definitely will stop there more often! It’s a very cosy space, dedicated to support and promote new local artists, from art, music, photography to fashion. Plus great coffee and daily free events! More info: Cult Mountain

Tate Britain, Turner, Moore

During the break I have managed to visit Tate Britain after the recent restoration. Tate Britain is very fortunate with this amazing building and amazing collections and now you can take a walk through 500 years of British Art. There is also a new Welcome Area for families, on the offer activities which encourage exploration and understanding of architecture, space, and scale. Feel free to let your child use a camera in the gallery.
For me the most impressive is collection of Joseph Turner’s paintings and new room with Henry Moore sculptures. Without crowd you can actually spend some reflective time in this gallery.

Tate for Kids

Art galleries in London are great spaces to hang out with your children. Many places offer play corners, activity rooms or free activity packs for your child. What I love about that without any plan you will always find something to entertain and encourage creativity in your child.
This time me and Ka made colourful picture viewers. Then we went to gallery rooms to look and take pictures of paintings through different perspectives. We had a great time.

To find out what’s on every day, follow the link Kids and families at Tate Modern

On Tate’s website you can also find some family tips when visiting Tate with children. The best point is “Make some noise – it’s OK to talk at Tate!”. As far as I remember from my childhood when visiting art galleries in Poland there was always a lady saying Shhh, we don’t talk here! So enjoy and share art with your children from an early age!!!

Paul Klee

Paul Klee is another must visit exhibition in Tate Modern. Klee was one of the most significant artist in European modernism. His influence can be seen in the works of Miro and Rothko and after visiting the exhibition I discovered much more about Paul Klee.
Klee in German means ‘clover’; clover and good luck belong together. Paul felt his wishes had come true when he painted and he created his work with the aim of making us happy, inspiring us to dream and carrying us off into another, more beautiful world… His motto was: “It is possible to achieve a great deal with very little. Abundance is possible in simplicity, too!”.

My favourite pieces:

Millennium Bridge

My last visit to Tate was a nice surprise as on the Millennium Bridge I met Ben Wilson.
He is an artist who creates amazing work from chewing gum. Isn’t he great? In addition, Ben also paints and sculpts.

You made my day!!!

Gaudi and children

Children from an early age should have be shown art by famous artists. Gaudi is a great example to develop children’s imagination.

This time children had an opportunity to see photographs of Gaudi’s buildings and the Park Guell.
After you can:
– use junk modelling to create a dream house
– draw with different materials
– make a mosaic from tissue paper

For older children you can find some simple facts about artist or make a short story.  Ask some questions, for example:
“Which forms and patterns can you come up with when looking at Gaudi’s work?”

Children’s work, inspired by Gaudi:

pictures by builderkid

Gaudi

Trip to Barcelona is MUST to really experience Gaudi fever! I knew about Gaudi, however I was never aware of how many buildings he designed. His work is all over the Barcelona and one of his biggest masterpieces is Sagrada Familia, still unfinished. The designs for his buildings were very imaginative; with their curving lines, colours, patterns they often seemed like unusual plants.

The Park Guell is breathtaking with the Barcelona view, Spanish music, Palm Trees, Gaudi mosaics and buildings. Amazing.

Blue Cock at Trafalgar Square

Blue Cock (haha) at Trafalgar Square is just amazing. Is a new artwork by Katharina Fritsch to fill square’s empty plinth.

It’s just great, big, bright and sooo blue, visible from every corner of Trafalgar Square.

In Guardian I found: ” The sculpture was unveiled by Johnson, who, despite his claim that “my critical faculties are exhausted by this wonderful sculpture” had plenty to say, not least a thinly veiled jibe at David Cameron’s recent efforts to crack down on online pornography. “If you were to Google the sculpture in a few years’ time,” he said, “search engines would collapse at the behest of the prime minister. Er, quite properly of course.” He warmed to the theme later. “You would be forbidden by prime ministerial edict from looking at it,” he told journalists. After a meaningful pause, he added: “Quite right too.” Full article here: Blue cock

I know now that things happen for a reason and on the day I had a blue dress I was at Trafalgar Square.

And you know – the blue cock will be there for 18 months. Yuppi.

Date with Van Gogh

Visiting Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam was an amazing experience. The exhibition is situated on three floors from Van Gogh’s development as an artist and the way he worked, then drawings by Van Gogh and a lab-like environment where you can do your own research and make your own discoveries to the rest of the collection Vincent van Gogh at work.

It is extraordinary collection as they were all painted in the period of ten years. He produced about 800 paintings and more than 1000 drawings as well as a large number of watercolours, lithographs, and sketches in letters, from which we can learn a lot about his life.

As a painter, he was largely self-taught. With the help of textbooks, a few lessons at the art academies, visits to museums, and advice from artist friends he taught himself the craft. 
As the years went by, he developed his own, highly distinctive style of painting  using expressive brushstrokes and vivid colours. This style has since inspired and influenced many subsequent generations of artists. 

Museum offers children’s audio tours, free treasure hunt and various workshops every weekend. You can also organise a birthday party with Van Gogh.

On top of that museum offers Friday nights open till 10pm and there’s always something special going on. Every Friday night, lounge chairs, video projections, live music, DJs, and a bar transform the museum central hall into a relaxed place to meet. Isn’t this great? Come one Tate Britain what about Joseph Turner late nights? Sounds good?

The ticket is pricey  as it costs €15, but definitely a must visit place. Amsterdam offers also 3D exhibition for another €14 called ‘My dream Exhibition’, it has copies of Van Gogh paintings, however some of his work you can watch in 3D and it is really impressing as you can see that his paintings are alive and he is a an amazing artist!

Looking for a quick inspiration II

Quick tour through gallery always brings a smile on my face. I arrived early for a work meeting at Pimlico and I decided to have a short tour and stop for a coffee at Tate Britain. My plan was to visit only Joseph Turner room, however the gallery is in the middle of big changes. The idea is to expand the gallery to transform, remodel and renovate. Can’t wait to visit again and see new areas dedicated to Joseph Turner, William Blake and Henry Moore.

I found only one Joseph Turner painting – Going to the Ball (San Martino), however there are other great artworks, which I like and some new displays: