Arts Explorer #8 - Pretend Play & Magical Thinking!

Art word of the Week: Composition


I have used this art word many times already, but that is because it fits the best with what my blog has to do each week that I use it. Anyways, a composition can be defined as the overall success, or the standard of achievement (Fox & Schirrmacher, 2009, p. 142). For this blog today, I feel that during my pretend play, there has been great success to bring my character, Diana Huggies alive :D!


Diana Huggies was born into the infamous family of Huggies Diapers. Her parents, David Huggies, and Daisy Huggies were very well known in the diaper community (which exists at the Huggies Diaper's Factory). They had a total of 120  children (the average amount of children that could fit into their boxed household) which they all raised to become the best underwear they could be, to the baby they were destined to serve. Diana however, was not satisfied at all with her "destiny" and one day decided to run away from home right before she was going to be used to catch the excrement of her chosen child. Right after she was laid down on the bed while her chosen child was taking a bath, Diana waited until no one was in sight, ran downstairs, and hid behind the computer desk of her chosen child's house. Have any of you mothers ever wondered where that diaper you just prepared to use went running to? Well this may be one of the explanations! Anyways, Diana waited until night time once everyone was in bed, and to her surprise the computer was still left on! From observing the factory workers at the diaper community where she used to stay before she was packaged and shipped away to fulfill her destiny, use the computers there, she knew how to use the mouse to do some research on this amazing thing called the "internet" that she was always so eager to use. Her parents always discouraged any type of thinking that did not include leak-prevention or flexible movement for babies. Anyways, once Diana began to use this computer, she automatically got rid of her old destiny, and was very excited to research the new type of life she could live!



The first image Diana had seen once she turned on the screen of the computer (this was the only thing that was turned off), was a picture of two very different looking pictures. But right away, she had an idea of how she wanted to reinvent her look. The two people she saw went by the names of Gucci Mane and Nicki Minaj. Diana had been very inspired by the colorful hair of this Miss Minaj, and loved the idea of the face tattoo gucci had. Diana decided that the first thing she would do once she went on her adventure to start her new life was buy a wig, and get a tattoo on her face. 

After a bit more research, Diana was able to find where she could find a talented tattoo artist, and a salon where she could buy her wig. She also decided that she was very interested in the type of  exciting lifestyles these celebrities live. Although Diana did not want to live the life her parents chose for her, she feel that she was satisfied with the purpose of benefiting young children's lives. She decided that after she got her make over she would run back to the factory where she came from and ask the leader of the community/ factory if she can become a singer/song writer of children's lullabies and urban nursery rhymes, with their help. At first, they were very surprised and also disappointed at this dramatic change Diana had made, but they ended up agreeing to let her do what she had a passion to do. 


So now Diana is a famous celebrity to the Huggies community! Her new job is to create new lullabies and children songs and share them by performing to the many Huggies factories all around the world! The diapers who hear her songs, then have the choice to sing their "chosen children" to sleep if they are having a troubled sleep that night. 


....So mothers and fathers, Huggies claims that your children sleep well overnight because of their extra protective-layers, or because of their comfort...but it may just be because of the tiny little voices singing your children to sleep which have all been created by the diaper ,Diana Huggies. Also, the wonderful little characters you see all over your children's diapers, may just be inspired by the tattoos Diana decided to get on her face as well :P.


I hope you all enjoyed the story of Diana Huggies as much as I did creating it. After completing this blog, I feel that this activity is a very useful activity for an early childhood setting. They may not be able to put their ideas onto a blog, but instead they could choose an inanimate object within the classroom and take turns telling their stories during circle time, or during recess with their friends. This blog allowed me to foster my creativity in order to bring my inanimate object to life..and I loved every moment of it!


Schirrmacher, R. , & Englebright Fox, J. . (2009). Art & creative development for young children. Belmont, California : Delmar Cengage Learning.

Arts Explorer # 2- My Instant "Sculptures"

Art Word of the Week: MUSIC.


The reason I have chosen this art word of the week is because it basically inspired me to create my instant sculpture for this blog. Just like the word creativity discussed in my last two blogs, there is no one way to define the word music. What may be music to one individual might be noise to another. For the sake of this blog I will define music in my own way and say it is "a pleasing sound to one's hearing ear, or a  pleasant vibration or beat one can feel". In other words, if the sound that you hear is pleasing to you, you can define it as music. There can be many debates about this definition. For example, someone may say that birds chirping in the morning is pleasing to their ear, but they may not want to define bird-chirping as music. Well, I DO define bird chirping as music. It is the music that nature makes. Also, in my definition I made sure that I added the word "hearing". This is because I feel that it is important to recognize that their are individuals who are unable to hear.


This leads us into the second part of my definition which states that music can be a vibration or beat one can feel. This is mainly for the individuals with special needs who can not hear, and as a creative educator I know there will definitely be children I will work with who will have special needs for hearing. They may not be able to experience music the same way typically developing people do, which is mainly through their ears and sound. However, I have learned in one of my classes that another way a child who is deaf or hard of hearing can enjoy music is by feeling the music through their body. This can simply be done through allowing the child to touch the musical device which is playing, or an object in the room while the music is playing. The child will then be able to feel the vibrations of the sounds/music (if there is any at the time) with their hands, and allow it to travel through their body. I did not want to think that music is non-existential to people who can not hear, because this is not true. Regardless if someone can not hear, music still exists to others around them. I also did not want to think of a world where certain people could not enjoy the beauty of music in any way. Thankfully there is a way, and I was very glad and fortunate to learn of this.  I will now move on forward to introduce the instant sculpture I have made this week....


Introducing, Elmirah and her Coloring DRUMS!

I understand that some of you may not agree that "coloring drums" are sculptures, but I could easily take the fun out of them and call them my "colorful rectangular masterpieces". Instead, I decided to use the "junk" laying around in my house and turn them into a "sculpture" which my daughter could use. Also, because I am temporarily staying with my mother who is a neat freak, it was very hard to find anything I could turn into a sculpture. I was left to search her in the basement where she keeps her recycling bin, and could only find the boxes from the snacks Elmirah and I have eaten since we've gotten there :p! Anyways, what I decided to do was take these boxes and try to think of something I could sculpt them into. It was very hard, so instead I thought of what I could use these boxes and turn them into altogether.


 Of course, Elmirah was right over my shoulder as I was trying to find a way to convert these lousy boxes into something new. Thats when I decided to use her once again, to think of something creative to do. Right away I thought of musical instruments, because of her profound love of music. At first I was going to think of making a guitar, but I could not find any   elastics to wrap around these boxes. So then I decided to make drums instead :). The decorations of the snack boxes were not appealing at all to use, so I decided to wrap paper around them. As soon as I got out the construction paper to use, Elmirah had yelled out "cuh-yur", (which is her way of saying color, because she does not yet know how to pronounce L's in the middle of some words). At first I was going to try and explain to her that we will not be coloring at the moment, but then that's when my fabulous idea came to mind! Why don't I let Elmirah decorate her drums once she is done, and why not use the markers as drum sticks as well?! (also because I could not find anything else to use in my mother's house to use). I was pretty sure she would not be able to decide which activity she wanted to do once I showed her the boxes I just finished covering with paper are her new cool drums, and also coloring pads. And I was right, so I decided to call these drums her coloring drums! I was very proud of these new FUN structures I just built, and Elmirah seemed to enjoy them very much as well.

Elmirah is enjoying our newly bulity structures by playing them as drums in the picture way above. In the picture to the left, Elmirah is having fun coloring her "coloring drums". For the purpose of this "art word of the week", I want to focus on the musical aspect of this sculpture. Fox & Schirrmacher (2009) , "music is a natural and important part of young children's growth and development" (p. 53). They also mention how early interaction with music brings a positive effect into the quality children's lives (p. 53). With these two facts, I am very glad that my daughter enjoys music so much. I also feel that it is very important that all children, including children with special needs get to experience the benefits of music. My sculpture could be used by children with special needs for hearing as well. While they use the boxes as drums they can feel the beats and vibrations of the markers hitting the boxes, through their hands. They can also enjoy the coloring part of the sculpture as well :).


Schirrmacher, R. , & Englebright Fox, J. . (2009). Art & creative development for young children. Belmont, California : Delmar Cengage Learning

Arts Explorer #7- Grocery Shopping with a Twist...PASTA!

Word of the Week: LINE.
"Line" has many definitions. One definition of a line is a visible mark made by an artistic tool, such as a crayon, moved across a surface, such as paper (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009, p. 135). They can be used is many ways, and they have their own personality (2009). Lines can be straight, curved, zigzag, or wiggly. They can be jagged or smooth, or patterned or irregular (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009, p. 135).


The reason I chose this art word of the week is because it was the first word to come to mind when I saw this particular type of food in the grocery store.  The food I am referring to is pasta. Although it is said that nature does not produce lines, it produces edges (Schirmaccher & Fox, 2009, p. 135), pasta is many representations of a line to me. It can also be looked at as a visible line made by an artistic tool, such as a pasta machine :p! Anyways, Just as there are many definitions for the word line, and also many types of lines, there are also many types of pasta as well. There is pasta that is straight, squiggly, curvy, flat, thick, and thin. Here is a list of 15 different types of pasta found on the website:  http://www.essortment.com/types-pasta-41750.html . Each type has a description beside it, which can give you an idea what lines they could represent. The words that are in bold are the words that made it easiest for me to relate these pastas to lines.

1.) Conchiglie : Ridged tiny shells the size of lentils.

2.)  Cresti di gallo: curved shape, brown in colour.

3.) Ditali/ ditalini: Short tubes similar to macaroni

4.) Eliche: Loose spirals.

5.) Farfalle: Bows used as an interesting shape for pasta and sauce dishes.

6.) Fettuccine: Medium ribbons

7.) Fusilli: Long twists often used in desserts and sweet dishes.

8.) Gemelli: Two pieces wrapped together to look like ying yang twins.

9.) Lasagne: Sheets of flat rectangular pasta

10.) Linguini: Long flat ribbons similar to fettuccini.

11.) Lumache: Snail-shaped shells

12.) Lumaconi: Big shells often used for fillings

13.) Macaroni: Long or short cut tubes, a favourite with cheese sauce.

14.) Orecchiette: Ear-shaped

15.) Penne: Quill shaped small pasta

16.) Rigatoni: Thick ridged tubes

17.) Spaghetti: Fine or medium rods 

18.) Tagliarini: Thin ribbons

19.) Tagliatelle: broad ribbons

20.) Vermicelli: Fine pasta, usually folded into skeins and stuffed/fille

As you can see, there are many types of pastas. To compare a few in detail the most common ones are spaghetti, macaroni, and lasagna. Spaghetti are usually long pieces of pasta which look like long straight line, and can be either thin or medium in thickness. The main color is the wheat/beige color, but all pastas can be colored. I have not seen spaghetti colored in any restaurant or grocery store before though. Macaroni are generally short tubes which can be curved at times (as they are in Kraft dinner products, or children food products). Their colors are also generally a wheat/beige color, and usually change only because of the sauce poured over it, such as cheese for macaroni and cheese (like in Kraft Dinners), or red for a tomato sauce (sometimes with ground beef). Lasagna are large, flat , rectangular pieces of pasta which are usually used to make dishes called lasagna. The large, flat surfaces are used to cover or sandwich a variety of ingredients such as tomato sauce, cottage cheese, mozzarella and/or cheddar cheese, and ground beef and/or vegetables. Finally, I will leave you off with a sketch I have drawn of different types of pasta (to the upper left :P), which I have labelled. Pay attention to the different lines used so that you can try to relate pasta to lines, just as I have :)!

Schirrmacher, R. , & Englebright Fox, J. . (2009). Art & creative development for young children. Belmont, California : Delmar Cengage Learning