Interesting young artists at the Saatchi Gallery

David Brian Smith - a big sheep man

I really like the playful way he uses colour in this painting with very modern tones introduced but within a more traditional, romantic palette that reminds me of the Impressionists.

Raffi Kalenderian - branching out into other animals

I'm interested in the way Raffi draws our attention to pattern and explores the beauty of patterns through simplifying form, flattening colour and choice of subject. It's interesting as well that because of this there is no sense of a light source in his paintings. 

Highpoints of 2016: Explorations with sand and potter's wheels

Just remembering a wonderful project the Year 4s did last summer. Where could we go with it next and would we have to adapt it to offer it to the early years?

Loose Parts - Inspiring Play in Young Children

Today we received a wonderful gift from the lady who was really our Reggio mentor and massive inspiration in Singapore. It's called Loose Parts - Inspiring Play in Young Children. It is not only wonderful because it conveys its message predominantly in photos, but because the authors create a really useful framework for loose parts play with many mini case studies, interpreting and categorising children's intentions when they play with loose parts.

Here is their framework:

Senses

Colour
Texture
Sound

Creativity

Art
Design
Symbolic Play

Action

Movement
Transporting
Connecting/ Disconnecting

Inquiry

Construction
Investigation

Correlation

Mark making

One of the many advantages of outdoor living is Indigo's love of making marks in the earth with sticks. She experiments with the length of her 'brushstrokes', long and short, and is interested in the resistance of the earth. Sometimes her marks are fluid and carefree; sometimes they are angular and intentional.

We were amazed to see how creative the local kids in Palawan, Philippines were with sand - particularly how intuitively they used sticks in the sand to clarify meaning - with drawings and letters - as we tried to communicate with each other.

Indigo also really enjoyed laying out her collected finds on the letters of her name today. She has letters she particularly enjoys identifying and drawing: I, p, o, x and e at the moment. 'I' and 'o' from her interest in the letters of her name. But she has no interest in 'n', 'd' or little 'i'which is interesting.