Yorkshire Sculpture Park

With the rainy weather creeping in as autumn approaches it's nice to remember our recent visit to the Yorkshire sculpture park. It recently won the Art Fund museum of the year for 2014 and it is a very well deserved eward. It's certainly a different way to experience sculpture as exhibits are placed around an expansive and very beautiful landscape. It's a very creative way certainly to get all the family to enjoy the experience of art and culture. It's free entry but there is a parking charge which is worth every penny for the experience. We had beautiful weather to explore and the wee man had his balance bike which made it easier for him to get about. We did not have time to explore the indoor galleries. It was hard sometimes because while you can look and touch and interact technically you are not allowed to climb on the sculptures and some of them were proving a bit irresistible! Thankfully there were trees to redirect him to. It was a fantastic day and I readily recommend it for a day out. 

Colour with Stencils

I have slowly built up the wee man's art supplies over the past few months. He has had these stencils for a while and though still not age appropriate according to the packaging we have got lots of fun out of them. It was my soft introduction into the whole arts and crafts world anyway and it was great to help the wee man with his words as each set is around a theme such as transport, animals and well dinosaurs which go roar by the way! Of course it was a great way to get him to use marker pens which he loved so much (trumps crayons big time) in a more "constructive" way! I love to see my wee man learning and being creative and using his imagination and having fun all at once. Before we knew it we invested in his own special chair and just recently he got his very own table. Now all I think I need to do is get him an apron.

Free Painting

I have a lot of respect for parents who do arts and crafts with their children. The wee man has done a lot with nursery. Yet other than a little bit of crayons and markers at home I have not really explored arts and crafts with the wee man. I then managed to do a bit of gluing and sticking with him lasting all of 5 minutes. I finally decided to play it big and braved up and got the paints out. The only really place to do it is in our kitchen as that is the only non carpeted area in our flat. I got lots of paper and stuck it down with some tape much to the wee man's amusement. He loves tape and I think he thought that was the planned activity. When I got some little finger paint pots out the excitement brewed. He looked at me rather cautiously not really believing that he could stick his finger in and go for it. It was simple really. 3 finger paint pots of blue, green and red. 2 different types of paint brushes. Go. It was all about the process and not really about the end result. It was messy but it was beautiful.

This post was inspired by the wonderful Mammasaurus and her idea of "The Creative Project" to let children lead the way in their creativity.