Still going strong

A friend of mine asked me recently if I was still doing my kid art ateliers and the answer is a resounding yes! I just haven't been blogging about them as much as I should have. Mostly they've been held at other people's houses because ours is so torn up and to be honest I've missed hosting them (as much as I whined about all the details--whining is in my nature, sorry). Anyway since they've been held at other people's homes and it's winter it's been hard to do anything too involved like papier maché or the Jackson Pollack tennis ball paintings I want to do (I really want to do this!), so I've kept them super simple.

Here's a recap of what we've been doing for the past few.

About a month ago a mom suggested we do stained glass yogurt jars* using craft paint for glass and that was a nice "crafty" activity. The girls seemed to like it a lot but the boys were a bit bored. The moms loved it.** Everyone did one and some were really nice. I wasn't so happy with the results of mine or Little S's. It all looked too crafty when finished, not that there's anything wrong with that it's just that I felt disppointed. I did buy some of the paint last week though to try again at home using more restraint in the glitter pen department, ahem.

We also did a mod podge project with little ready made papier maché animals (designed for collaging or painting and sold in most craft stores worldwide me thinks). The kids LOVED this activity. The animals were a little cheezy,--- kitties and dolphins, cuteness overload, but what I liked about it was that the kids really got a feel for collage and the animals helped hold their interest for the hour they worked on it. It was a great way to introduce them to the idea of mixed media for later projects. Sneaky sneaky.



Today we had another atelier but a lot of people had other obligations and the host cancelled the day before *gasp* so I just decided I'd hold it at my house since it was small and manageble. A friend of mine came up from Paris with her boys and I had one other little girl who's a regular come over so we were a small group. I had nothing planned really so we cut out Christmas trees that the kids drew (folded in half and double cut--simple trick that they loved). Then they decorated their trees with hand drawn balls (I use old magazines for color and variety) and star stickers and in the case of the boys, truck stamps. It was really cute with their five years old drawings and they had a great time glittering and decorating them. In the end we had the idea of sticking them on the window as decorations or maybe stringing them up since they'd made two or three in one sitting. This was more of a craft activity but it just proves that the atelier can be off the top of your head if you can't find the time to organize it in a given week as long as you have a little stock of supplies. Voila! you can still keep it going.

I'm really happy with the whole experience so far and I have to say it's been more popular than I thought it would be. In fact we don't announce it around anymore because it's kind of awkward not to invite others after talking glowingly about it and how much fun it is. You really can't invite everyone though because it gets overwhelming. Probably the hardest part I've found is waiting for the next person to decide to take the reigns and host it. I like the control of having at my house and a few of the mom's tell me they've run out of ideas already (as if!) so in January I think I'll start hosting it more or less full time. It's just easier and it lets me switch around the invitees too because I now know two artist moms who would probably bring in some nice ideas.

The kids always run up to me on Tuesday at the school and say "Christine! Christine! on va faire quoi demain pour l'atelier?" (what are we doing for the atelier tomorrow?) They love it. Don't be afraid to start one because this enthusiasm will be there no matter what projects you do. It's really a nice ambiance and the kids are always much calmer in an atelier than if they're just visiting your house in a group with nothing planned. Many, many times amazingly enough we've been sitting there with eight kids around a table and you can hear nothing but the occasional peep of a little voice saying "pass me the scissors" or "can I use that red when you're done?" and like I said these kids are noisy kindergarteners!

*French yogurts often come in glass jars--small baby food jar size more or less

**sometimes the moms do the activities too--it's not planned and sort of just happens