Art classes in Berlin
Dear friends, Holidays have taken place, Christmas is here and New Year is not far. I would like to wish you all peaceful family times and a fabulous 2020 with as little stress as possible. With this post I would like to share some news. I lately got a full time art teaching position in…
This came out so pretty it’s hard not to be a little proud to be the one who led it through. A very uncomplicated subject, easy to explain, understand and assemble. It’s all about shapes and colours. We spoked a bit about Bauhaus and looked at their work, we also looked at some videos of…
A lot of cutting this was. The basic idea was for the children to comprehend and accomplish understandment of third dimension and size diversity. I personally find third dimension hard to explain. These children are between 5 and 6 years old. We started with the smallest cloud making it bigger and bigger. Children glued cardboard…
Is there something at all left to say? Could these be any better? I mean except my lame photography skills and the fact that I have to take a better camera in my hands since it is winter and not much light here anymore. I found this book in one of the art projects on…
Dragons. The mythological creatures. The shivers of imagination, paintings, folk sculptures and literature. Dragons. Who doesn’t like them! The class was full of joy and enthusiasm and the rewards left children speechless. They were so proud of their work and it was so great to see them seeing the work they almost forgot about (it…
At school the children are learning about how to use natural resources to make art. In this group the room teacher decided to teach children about spiders and their natural environment so she already had the project prepared. Spiders were supposed to be made out of paper but they will be building the rest of…
My midis were left to themselves and they behaved very responsible. I am ever so proud of them!
These children are learning about geometric shapes at the moment so I thought this could be a good starting point in art. “Castle and sun”, the beautiful Paul Klee. The lone sun shines in the ingeniously designed sky created by strong lines and structure while various shades of colour and rectangular sizes add depth to the…
A fantastic hour with minis. Houses, trees and the weather. They loved it!
Time for shivers, scares, and thrills, for pumpkin grins in windowsills, for black cats in the full moon’s glow, and a happy Halloween HELLO! Although I’m not at all a fan of celebrations that don’t belong to our culture and prefer to live them in the country of it’s origin, there seem to be things in…
This was fun. A bunch of us walking to the playground to fill up the empty bottles with sand. There is a little road dividing the atelier from the playground and I had to stand in the middle of it for all of the kiddos to pass safely to the other side while the cars…
So if you are careful you might notice on the last photo (I did my best to cut it out elsewhere) we have a new wall at school. Well I don’t really like it! It’s red and white and red and white and with this a bit of this and a bit of that it simply…
Oh dear! Should I remember? We did this workshop quite a while ago and honestly, the result is cute but THIS was a mess. I don’t think I ever had a workshop that wouldn’t somehow work but this……………. I don’t want to put anyone off this job so just sayin’: DO try out the balloons…
This project was connected to the school unit of self exploring. It was an action painting. I chose five different pieces of classical music for children to listen to while their eyes were closed. Then at some point while the piece was still running they were asked to start painting by simply moving their hands…
My kids just love printing. Printing and clay. If they won’t know the project ahead they will shout PRINTING!! or CLAY!! And I will go Well not today heh, I’m not prepared. Boring. So I prepared that morning. Or maybe a previous day. I got up with a mission! Coffee and printing!! Coffee and block printing!!…
This was a lovely easy going project. These girls all love horses, of course, they have seen them many times and they therefor had no problem of drawing one. How cute and self confident are these? I just love them. Instructions are, I think, well captured on the photos. Draw, cut out, add materials, a…
This was a 4 hours workshop of very fine results. I really underestimated the children on this one! I thought it will be so hard I even made a back up plan of making comics if this might not work. We watched some you tube videos together and in not even 5 minutes had these…
What a very fine project this was! We spoke about Patrick Heron and his amazing work. Children have cut some forms out of pre painted paper (Matisse style) and glued them on their paper. This is just to make the further process easier. Next step was cold colours. They got only primary colours, black and white and…
This project was made with children aged 3 and 4. I do not have any photos of the process alone but it was pretty straight forward. The theme at the class was communication about which children spoke already on few occasions with their class teachers. I prepared a table full of wooden blocks of all…
Children were asked to bring their old little items, toys, toothbrushes, things that were once used and have passed their time. Time to recycle! I printed out some photos of Louise Nevelson and her work and then we spoke about her, about items she collected and found on the streets and amazing works she did…
Great project with such amazing subject by smallhandsbigart. I mean here are hooorseeees and pandas and cats! Children loved it and they loved to learn proportions and try themselves out in realistic portrait drawing. They really had so much fun doing these it is certainly not the last time. But I bet it will be hard…
Minis were enjoying wood. They were making all sorts of animals. A lovely relaxed open creative play.
Our two days long camp was inspired by folk art. We were making our own arpilleras, that are actually connected to our life not the one in Chile, so maybe they should be berlilleras. I came across this lovely project at smallhandsbigart and I am immensely grateful for this site loves to share and give opportunity…
Lovely “black paper-chalk” (for midis) and “black paper-gouache” (for maxis) project. These are working so well together that I believe they might just be my favourite painting materials. So we spoke about Modigliani, quite a sad story too, actually one of those rare ones that you really can’t give to children, not in full, no…
Another project for our school’s unit. Self-portraits with beautiful backgrounds. Children were instructed to use all sorts of lines. I find this project so positive and beautiful. It was suggested by the class teachers which also did the photography, the little interviews and writing with the children. I only did the art bit, quite easy…
I found a similar project somewhere on internet, I think it was by another workshop genius artbar, which loves cardboard, but I can’t find it any more. This project is connected to our school unit and was done by preschool children. This are their self-portraits and many do look alike.
A sweet little stone project for little artists. Bugs and their large families were hatched on these trays. Unfortunatelly I had no time for a camera and took these few photos with my phone. Better than nothing.
And here I present the third and oldest group being busy with mother’s day presents. Children were making beautiful mobiles. Leaves and feathers made of clay hanged on beautiful branches shaped and formed by unflagging three: see, salt and sun! They came all the way from Cantabria in our suitcases instead of shoes and other useless…
The Midi’s were fully busy with their Mother’s day preparations too. They’ve made self portraits. We used a special paper (kiss print) and some chocolate boxes for frames. A really sweet little gifts these were!
That special day when kids get probably more excited than mothers! I have to say it is the most wonderful to be the one taking part of it and lead them through. Mother’s day was this year very big at out studio and all the ages were making different project. This one was done by…
Another air drying clay project. Children at school took a letter C on that very day so we decided to grow cactus’. Why not!
A lovely project for an open play with the little ones. Houses are a big inspiration at this age so no problems around there. A lot of trying out, adding and removing, playing around with items that are leaving traces when pressed on clay. Nice working hour.
I did same kind of workshop with the preschool children before (scroll down if interested). It was not the easiest workshop, it takes time, patience and involves a lot of thinking but I think it is a very important subject and kids adore it. Great stories filled with power, imagination, super powers and mystery. This…
We spoke about Roy and Andy, POP art and Easter. Very funny I know but we like to laugh!
This was a mix of a bit of everything workshop that lasted really long time. We produced all sorts of eggs and eggs and eggs.
This workshop was held at school with 3 year old children regarding the school unit and also at my private studio with 3-6 years old children. It was very sweet. We spoke about bacterias, dirty hands and all those coughing methods. We read through a funny book of funny harry little guys with sharp teeth…
This project was fun but a lot of work. It might not look like it but every single child would agree. The cutting was the hardest. I wish we had time to make some sort of head rings behind the wigs so they would stand on heads by itself but it was more than enough work…
Years later we landed back at fairies. Well what can you do, they are too cute! They offer such variety of imagination. They are forest creatures. They sleep in most beautiful, soft, green moos. Nuts all around them, they have hats made out of various forest fruits and live surrounded by dog roses. We love…
Still life with beautiful vegetables. We enjoyed all the curves, shadows, bumps, holes, lines. Some vegetables are really like planets. Such surface. It was a fantastic workshop.
Children themselves were bagging for this project. Kids firstly drew their robots like we usually do, a little study. Then they talked about them pretty intensely, how do they look, what can they do, they also gave them names of course. There was a lot of talking about lasers, eyes lasers, finger lasers, no idea,…
We love Piggy and elephant books at our mini classes. We read There is a bird on your head. So what else can you do than draw birds on each other’s heads? I choose birds because these are pretty small children and drawing is still quite a big deal and a challenge. Birds are fairly easy….
We talked about a living artist. Finally! Gustavo Peñalver Vico. There are at least two buildings with his art on Berlin’s skyscrapers. When I saw them I thought it’s such a simple and clear drawing with all of those divided forms and colours. Kids would love it! Each child got quite a thick piece of wood with attached…
This was an amazing project with a great story behind. I would love it to be mine but it wasn’t. I fully found it on Small hands big art, my favourite of all creative pages. Children engineered flying objects. First they drew a sketch and a whole planning. They were offered certain materials and a photo…
I found this chalk pastel project somewhere on internet. It was great to use the pastels and the project was just lovely. The children couldn’t wait to come as far as to smear the pastels and they did it with such joy when they were finally and officaly allowed to. I will definitely be coming back to…
This was such a fun project, an open art play. Children were very busy and they wouldn’t stop really. So much concentration and patience. Great work!
As an upgrade to the previous project, Inside and outside of the houses, we talked about ourselves and our inner self. How do we look and what is happening in our minds, what are our favourite things, what do we like to do most, what we don’t like doing, maybe our favourable memory. Our inspiration…
I have a book that I find pretty amazing. It’s called Woran denkst du?. I wished to do a project on the subject but since it’s quite abstract I decided to start with a similar project only instead of drawing our mind we drew houses. Houses are easy. We all have one, live in one, have…
This was such a cool project. I had an excuse to buy beautiful big old jars we used for drawing. Children needed to observe the form, jar’s opening and jar’s bottom. When the form was in place we spoke about the most valuable memory the children could think of. This project was an inspiration from…
This was a very nice activitiy inspired by Small Hands Big Art’s amazing blog. I love the black paper we used and the credit cards are extra fun. Special usage of cards as brushes is reall enjoyment to play around. How and where to press on the card, which direction to pull it into, movements…
As the year draws to an end I feel deeply grateful to all the parents for the trust, enthusiasm and support for Artnuts over the years. Artnuts wouldn’t be what it is today without you and your wonderful children!As a little thank you we had a few lovely Christmas Family Workshops at the studio. Together we made seasonal…
These beautiful rainbow crowns turned out really royal. Princes and princesses of far countries, scent of myrth, secret of buried treasures in vast lands of dunes, camels, tanzanit blue skies, golden orange abandoned cities dancing in the heath and rhythm of sintir. Just imagine!
This was the loveliest activity ever. Four hours of sitting, listening to music and working. And not a single little artist wanted to get up until it was time for hot glue station (me in charge – big burn to show off!). Well we did force the children to have a break and everything that goes…
It was still nicer and warmer outside when we did this workshop. Beautiful autumn offers so many opportunities to use lovely natural materials. A little walk outside that do us all good and a bit of exploration which we all have in our veins. First we read a sweet book The little gardener then children were…
I had no idea children will enjoy this activity so much. It is a very easy one to understand but since everything is so small and rounded (and quickly also very sticky) it is not that easy to make. They did love it though and they would probably make just as many more dolls as…
We spoke about Mark Rothko a little bit but more than that the children were into mixing colours and trying how they match together and what sort of impression do the combinations provoke. Is it OOO, is it AAA, is it UAAA or YOOHOOO or maybe a MMMMMM… and what do all those interjections mean….
We read a book Mog’s Christmas and we’ve made some Christmas decorations. Children were using natural materials, wire, beads and buttons. They created some lovely mobiles.
Two hours of observational drawing. Observed were the old cameras and old coffee grinder. It was quite a lot of fun. The group was very excited and tried all sorts of drawing: drawing with mouth, with left hand for right handed and opposite, drawing without looking, drawing in one line and even drawing with the…
Some more printing moments captured in this post. Styrofoam prints this time. Printing is fun!!
This was such a sweet little project. We read an African book in which a friendship between various animals is seriously challenged. The variation of the animals helped children decide between three different animals they should blend into one. The cocktail was delicious!
I find pipe cleaners and plastic pony beads somehow off-putting. I could include some other stuff here like googly eyes, school markers or colour-ins for example. I think with me anything to do with easy crafts goes in that brain field. But I do know all these things are also really unbeatable. If you want…
The magic of 11.11 and the beautiful city of little lights and songs singed by tiny voices. We were ready! We made the pretty lanterns with crayons, water colours and inks. We used aquarell paper and thicker drawing paper, both were fine. When the paintings were dried I oiled them with kitchen oil, children beaded the wires and wrapped the sticks…
Still life, fruit plates and old stories. We went in the past and enjoyed the process a lot. Children drew and cut out the fruits and then made different structures with various tools. They made some plates, some juice glasses and straws too. Voila!
We read a book Elmer the Elephant in the Mini class and we did some sponge dipping for the patchwork elephant and some brush painting for the carnival elephant. Of course you have to read the book if you want to understand that! It was fun!
We had a lovely class on observational drawing of insects. I printed out different insects and children mostly decided for a bee. They observed, compared, counted and did all of that fur in a certain direction. Just as it grows. The wings were great too. If they drew them too hard and thick, pressing their…
There are projects on internet so perfect I can not only not avoid trying them out but I can’t even make myself change a slightest thing!! This original creation is by Artbar and it blew my mind. It was a busy hour with a group of 3-6 year olds. Children had a blast with these squeezing paints that…
These beautiful autumn days have been high in printing spirit. Full of experimenting and anticipation, some disappointments, some surprises but mainly excitement. Printmaking just is like that!
These beautities were made at Minis, parent-child classes. There was some work and a lot of inventiveness on the mothers’ sides. Children did the deco, all the important buttons and helmets too of course. I know they will have A LOT of good time inside of them. Everyone needs a rocket once in a while….
Mini classes had a chance to play around with clay. I find children always skeptic about it at first, not knowing what to do and not wanting to damage anything they’ve made but as they get familiar with it, realizing they can fix just about anything that seems they’ve messed up, it becomes such fun. It’s…
Our first summer camp at Raumerstrasse turned out wonderful. Our project was entertraining, merry and joyfull. Children would gladly prolong it until Friday and we could probably really be working for another week to make it all perfect and satisfy all the ideas and wishes. Development of our project was really in stages and it…
This fun activity is much about unconscious learning. Children have lots of fun using the pipettes, sucking the liquid in and out, leaving traces of paint on paper. By slowly adding another colour to the paper they can observe how colours mix and change. They are offered to blow on their papers. It´s such a…
We read There is a bird on your head by Elephant&Piggie. The book is really funny and my mini course group had much lough. After the reading we spoke about the nests, what is in them, who is in them, what are they made of. The children then each got a paper and were challenged to make…
Finally again a female artist! Pfeeeew this feels me up with real relief! I would prefer to show off female artists more often but it just doesn’t happen. No real good reason, just a desire to study a certain artist with children at certain time, just a simple logical sequence, nothing more. I guess I’m not…
We did these heads so long ago the children probably already forgot about them. Well they are in for a nice surprise this Saturday because the heads are finally fired and ready to take home. None broke and all of them are fantastic.
The mini class was gluing, building and painting. Ah, this lovely realxing art!
This project was done in one of my mini classes with 3-6 years old children. We read one of many Eric Carle’s books and had a little discussion about what illustrations are, who is an illustrator and what is his job. Then we looked carefully at Carle’s art and sleeves up and work began! Children used all sorts of…
For last two months and a half our work was dedicated to portrait, self-portrait and mixing of colours. We’ve made large self-portraits on cardboard, portraits of children’s mothers on wood painted in expressionist style, we’ve made clay heads which are currently in the process of fireing. And since we’ve tried the adding process with clay…
An amazing few hours we had making these beautiful paintings. We quite took the time and that was fine. Children enjoyed the project with ease. We started on this paitings just after children learned how to mix primary colours so this seemed and turned out as the most logical step forward. We looked at works…
Thinking, imagining, associating, planning, transforming it from imagination to paper, from paper to wood and then staying in the frame of fauvist and expressionist colours. The children did fantastic work guided by their desire to give a wrapped gift to their dear dear mothers on Mother’s Day. Have a happy one dear mamas! You rock!
After reading a book Masks in the forest children made animal masks. They were working their finger muscles by gluing little pieces of paper on not such small surface. Quite some patience and focus were demanded and they did it really well.
Every year there is at least once time for Marc Chagall and his magic. Here the masterpieces of 2018. A week later these children went for an exhibition with their class and by some space/planet/univers-al coincidence they were shown works of you know who and they all started shouting: “Marc Chagall! We know him! It’s…
The children here only got primary colours and black and white. They were mixing and mixing and mixing and I bet they would still be mixing if I didn’t take paints away.
Ice creams are a thing. You can never go wrong there. And if you make them giant as these you are in for a win and gold and all ot that. This is a lovely spring/summer art project. Easy and tasty. Inspired by lovely artbar.
We’ve made some beautiful ice cream sundaes with my 3-6 year olds after reading a book from Mo Willems, Should I share my ice cream. We’ve made them before with my now older children. You can search for the post below if you are interested in the process. They are an on going inspiration by…
This is a lovely project all made from egg cartons. It needs a bit of preparation but children enjoy it a lot because it involves all the good things: painting, assembling, gluing. Two hours of joy!
I did this project last month with my 5 and 6 year olds but as these works are turning out so amazing I am posting here the works of my 7 and 8 year olds. Somehow I was never a Depeche mode fan but I guess there comes a time for I just can’t get enough…
I am most proud of my 5 and 6 year old artists! We had a tiny chat about self portraits in the history, we had a good laugh about a few of them and we were shocked about some others. Some pretty, some surprising. Quite very interesting! And this here is how my children see…
We had an amazing fun building a city in a collaborative art project. Whole thing turned into a great game. We had a factory and a store of different shapes and colours. We had a production, a selling department, costumers and an assembling department. Very merry!
This is again an inspiration from many time mentioned artbar. To make these lovely marionettes there are many steps to achive but none is very complicated. If you will be making them with more children at once, bare in mind there are many knots to do. My children couldn’t do them especially not the double…
It’s time for carnival! And we love animals! And we love to look crazy! So do not bother guessing…
My fine motor skills class worked on animal cardboard puppets. They were building their finger muscles whille fighting through thick cardboard and their brain muscle when building this thing together. Look at these beauties please!
We made a beautiful project on harvest. I came across an art project on Maria Strocchi by Art Camp that I loved and Maria’s simple childlike beautiful forms do trigger a desire to offer kids to discover her work. She is painting landscapes of her homeland, Australia. She has this natural raw touch of warm colours…
We were learning how to mix colours. Children enjoyed this very much. I only gave them blue, red, yellow, white and black and they made such pretty shades of all possible colours. They were first painting on cardboard and then on canvas. We tryed to frame the paintings with embroidery hoops but I think they…
We spoke about arhitecture and the lovely Hundertwasser. And we said things like: “Ooooooh, if only more houses were of him. Slides everywhere! Trees on the roofs! And those windows! I want round windows from ever! I want gas stations with trees and the flowers! I want a round room on the top of the…
Our famous artists workshop was this time really ancient. We peeked into the world of Greek mythology. We used a fabulous book about mythological monsters. We were swimming in various materials. We had much fun and we also learned. With our exhibition we are now teaching others.
So we are back after long and good holidays, yiiipeee!! And for the starter my children did these beauties. I am so very proud of them! The inspiration came from my dear friend Tina who is an expert on fairies. Many fairies she made lives all over our apartment, hidden somewhere between jam glasses or just hanging from ropes…
We had a very interesting time talking about Oskar Schlemmer and the basic forms. Children were busy drawing the forms, some also used rulers, then there was lots of cutting. And after – the pleasure of painting!
My children assembled these pretty mixed animal collages that are now shining in our school’s hallway. Each creature is made out of two or three animals. Pretty cool they are!
This time we worked on madame Bourgeois. We browsed through a really nice book, Lied für Louise , and we talked about her life quite a bit. You can’t avoid it when discussing such a prominent lady. The children did the spiders (one made an octopus) out of wire that they’ve taped over to reach some more volume…
This time we had a little lesson on Jean Dubuffet and then we did a lot of work. Children had such a good time. There was nothing to think about, nothing to be careful about, they could even walk and lay down anywhere on the piece they were creating. Really cool!! And now look at…
Beautiful aquarel paintings by my 5 and 6 year olds. We spoke about Marc Chagall, we looked at some of his work and the children talked abaut what they’ve noticed. I drew their observations on the black board because they don’t read yet: Eiffel tower, a goat, a violin, a rooster, houses, flying people… The…
Tempting ice cream sundaes made today. Again inspiration by an art workshop blogger artbar that I greatly admire for her creativity. She published a book Art Workshop for children I like to open often. My girls could spek only about biting in their papier-mâché scoops and I do understand. I bet they also did it when I wasn’t watching….
The amazing assemblages with found objects. One could do them all the time. They are so special and unique. Children brought in their own items. That way they really connect to their piece and are involved from the beginning. Finding items, keeping and bringing them, showing them to the others. This all gives so much…
I am happy to show off this lovely circus tents, inspired by artbar. I have to say it was A LOT to prepare but seeing children’s faces when they finished payed it all off! They really looked forward to finish this project making it as pretty as possible. I had no time to take photos…
20 small fingers and 10 clever heads were working hard to make these beautiful statues. We talked about Giacometti and we tried various techniques for this project. Also clay, if only to learn we don’t come third as high as Giacometti’s figures are. This surfers are made out of wire which children taped to get…
Each child got one stick that I picked in the forest. The instructions were to observe the stick and decide which animal to make out of it. It had to be part of the animal. When they decided on an animal they made little sketches first and then started working on cardboard. They were then…
Artnuts really went nuts with Yayoi Kusama and we loved it! It was such a fabulous project involving a lot of singing: “Alles gets, alles gets, NO excuse me!!… alles gelb, ALLES GELB!!!” Wireing, sculpturing, painting, dotting, talking, talking, talking. It took us a while but it was simply great. And we learned a thing…
My preschoolers were busy with Paul Klee and these are the fruits of our work. Great they are!
We worked on Matisse, we read a nice book about his life and his scissors. Man in his bed and his wheelchair cutting up everything that came under his fingers. The project was easy. I love the forms the children did, the colours they’ve joined. We were a bunch of proud and bouncing art nutters!!…
These little creatures were made out of recycling materials and materials taken from nature. It took us a little longer to finish this project but it was cheerfull. Children also made homes for their little fellows and voilà!
Today we spoke about Miró’s lovely colours, elements and creations. These lovely mobiles are the prove of successful operation!
The new school year`s workshops have kicked off and we are having wonderful time of creating, cutting, measuring, cleaning, painting bits and bobs, gluing, chit chatting. Here are the results of our first workshop. We did masks inspired by Laurent Moreau. Wonderful book too!
Hello spring! It’s time for little walks with baskets. There is so much to collect, try and make. We love it!
Natural wooden beads always come in handy and it’s good to have them around. Today was their day in our house. We decided to glue them into… whatever. With some extra paint! We lasted hours!