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MARCH: Being In The Moment With David Hockney Part 2

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In one of Austin Kleon's recent email newsletters, he shares about David Hockney being a quarantine icon. Reading this confirmed just how appropriate inspiration Hockney's work is for this lockdown season. It is worth mentioning, too, that David Hockney, while self-quarantined in Normandy, France, continues to make art and shares his work online. I love his recent painting of daffodils titled, Do Remember They Can't Cancel Spring, which is a cheerful and hopeful piece for these trying times. He even suggests that "...people could draw at this time...Question everything..." and continued to Read More

March: In The Moment With David Hockney PART 1

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Let's face it. It is difficult to escape our current situation, specially for those of us who are quarantined in our own homes. And while I'm avoiding having to succumb to the pressure of hyper-productivity during this stressful and mentally troubling time, I also see the wisdom in making use of all the extra hours learning new things, specially with my kids. To be honest, we are simply trying our best to go about our usual routine prior to the lockdown and working on art projects has always been part of it. It has definitely brought extra comfort and entertainment to our family in these Read More

Kusama-esque Paper Mache Sculptures

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We are in Week 3 of community quarantine! To those of you who have kids at home, I totally understand if you find yourself at your wits end, completely out of any more creative ideas to do with them at home. At the beginning of the lockdown, we worked on this project that wasn't exactly quick and easy. But I thought, we've got so much time in our hands, we might as well do something more immersive and can stretch for a longer period of time. So I'm sharing this paper mache project with you now. It's a craft technique that has been around for as long as I can remember but have only recently Read More

February: Making Dots with Yayoi Kusama

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I was quite excited about tackling Yayoi Kusama with the kids because I find her to be a very interesting human being to learn from. Most people are aware of her madness and know of her obsessive art expression but something that I admire about her is how she has turned her psychological challenges into a successful career and a grand display of beauty. I own a set of Yayoi Kusama prints which I bought in National Gallery Singapore a couple of years back which I had framed and are now hanging on a wall in our home. I let the kids look closely at them and asked what they could see in the Read More

January: Picasso & Cubism

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One of my goals this 2020 is to learn more about the lives and styles of different influential contemporary artists, both of our time and of the past. I also thought it would be best to include my kids in this year long venture into art history as part of their weekly art sessions at home. As an unschooling family, I've discovered that when I try new things alongside them, it becomes a much more memorable learning experience for everyone. Photo from Wikipedia The goal is to focus on one artist each month. In January, we started off with Pablo Picasso who is widely known to have Read More

No 5 Craft For Christmas: Glitter Jars

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My kids could barely wait for the day to work on this project. After a failed attempt a few months back, I promised I would include it in our Christmas countdown activities so they were happy to finally give it another try and make it work a Iot better this time. No 5 Craft For Christmas are Glitter Jars which are basically DIY snow globes made out of empty jam jars, little toys and, of course, glitter! I made the girls choose their own little toys to put inside their jars. Summer and Emma chose little plastic trees from their train set, while Jo chose a tiny dinosaur figure. We Read More

No 6 Craft For Christmas: Activity Zines

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This may be the simplest, quickest and most carefree project in the countdown -- Christmas activity zines! If you remember from my post a few months back, one of the things I like making for my kids are little booklets with thematic activities to keep them busy and entertained on a road trip, a special occasion or even on a regular day at home. I decided to make one that's Christmas themed for when Kayo and I went to see U2 (WOOHOO!) last week and left them at my in laws. I whipped it up just the night before so the activities were pretty simple like matching objects, illustration and Read More

No 7 Craft For Christmas: Jingle Bells!

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Our seventh craft project this Christmas is something that sounds sweet and cheerful to the ears… We made handheld jingle bells! This one was part of a Christmas workshop I held last Saturday at one of our favorite places in town, Quriocity, and in collaboration with my friend Coeli. We called it A Night of Carols where kids and kids at heart spent the evening learning Christmas songs, dancing, playing games and working on their own music makers. Aside from the bells, we were so fortunate to have been provided by Craft Easy Philippines with such festive and colorful Read More

No 9 Craft For Christmas: Silly Hats

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All the children in our Unschooling squad were encouraged to come in Christmas hats at our Christmas party the other day. We didn't own any so I figured I should turn that into our No 9 Craft For Christmas! We unearthed some of their old woven hats and decorated them. It was a fairly easy project which only really involved cutting felt and foam shapes then putting them together using hot glue. I assembled them myself but the girls were the ones who decided what they wanted their hats to look like. Summer went for a poinsettia, Emma wanted hers a reindeer and Jo, a Christmas Read More

No 11 Craft For Christmas: Wreath Make Over!

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I bought this bare Christmas wreath a few years back which I decorate differently every few years. One time I used book paper pages and the next year, I used fabric scraps. I really prefer upcycling things I find around my home instead of buying new ornaments. As an Advent Calendar activity the other day, the girls helped me dress up the same old wreath. This time, we used leftover felt and glitter tape I had in storage! Each of the girls made two felt ornaments which I helped assemble using hot glue. We added the starburst cutouts later on using glitter tape from Craft Easy Read More