Karigar for Kids

Diya

2009-03-31T06:55:00.000-07:00

Every house in North India is outlined with rows upon rows of tiny earthenware pots filled with oil.

Diwali, for me, as a child, was pure magic. At night, the house framed by an outline of diyas, the sound of firecrackers and the smell of the smoke in the air. Pure magic!!

As a child the fun was in laying the diyas along the balcony railings at precise intervals. Some are leaky which you discover only a while later when the marble (a very porous stone) becomes stained with the oil! So I figure out a way to protect the marble, by placing thick cardboard pieces under the diyas! Clever me, I always thought!! One year I alternated between one candle and one diya. The effect was gorgeous.

So here we are in Singapore, each year, still looking for ways to arrange diyas to make the house feel different and special. The kids are catching on slowly but surely!

When I had the first Diwali party at our apartment ,which barely had space to contain 10 small kids (and we had invited twenty), I thought that Diya painting was a must do. My older one was barely 4 at the time. I was new to the world of art and crafts!! Went out and bought Poster paints!! The kids loved to mess about painting the diyas. The result was a grey-green lacklustre diya. Surely there was something not right, I thought to myself. The unglazed earthenware soaked up the paint and that was that! Luckily the kids were too young to understand and the moms too appreciative of the Diwali party to care.

The next year I bravely decided to try acrylic paints. Have not looked back since.

Acrylic paints work beautifully on unglazed earthenware. And they dry within minutes. The colours are bright and happy as Diwali colours must be. So over the years we have painted our diyas a bright blue, green, hot pink, orange and red. Children, when left to their imagination, came up with amazing ways of painting them. The outside one colour and the inside another.

We went on refining our work. There were sequins to stick on in a pattern one year.

The rim was painted with glitter. It looked so pretty. After a couple of years we figured that if you take a plate, dust glitter over it, draw a line of glue around the rim and then simply dunk the diya upside down into the plate, its the most hassle free way to a sparkling diya!!

I am struck by how each year we repeat this one activitiy and the children never seem to tire of it. Apparently Diwali Party is not complete without painting diyas!! So the older one says.

Folder Fun

2009-03-29T07:44:00.000-07:00

On one of my innumerable trips to Ikea I discovered gorgeous folders in bright metallic shades, blue, red, a deep pink. Over the years the mind subconsciously links these kinds of things. So the folders instantly meant Deepavali activity.

But as this was the time that the ideas had run dry, I struggled with what to do on the folders. after considering various options, I settled for a simple design of a brass hanging lamp. The kind which are popular in the south of India. They are hung from the ceiling, oil is filled in the lamp and a cotton wick is used to light the lamp. The design is from ......

Photocopies were made on made on white paper. Metallic Gold paint was taken directly from the pot with thick brushes and literally slathered on with brush marks showing. But the paint was kept within the thick black lines.

Red flames were cut out from thick handmade paper and golden circles (left over from a previous Diwali, when golden Doilies were used. The inner circle was cut out and kept and just the outer filigreed circle was used for an art activity).

The flame was stuck above the lamp. A few gems were stuck randomly on to the area around the flame.

An Elephant

2009-03-29T02:03:00.000-07:00

It was Deepavali 2008. And this time nothing was happening! No ideas, no inspiration, nothing. A complete blank. I turned to the web as I always do and looked for something, anything. For a couple of years the idea of introducing Miniature paintings had been there. And when I saw the picture of an elephant. That was it. Images of long lines of grey and wrinkled elephants slowly ambling up to the Amber Fort floated into the mind.

I printed the picture off the web, traced it on a tracing sheet. And simply photocopied onto to cream coloured 160 gsm printer paper. I find white too stark, cream (actually more butter than cream!!) works beautifully.

Water colours are hard to handle. Water colour pencils are relatively easy. The children are generally aged between 6 to 14. Most in the range of 9-12. I felt they could handle the more challenging water colour pencils.

As time is always a constraint, I did the black and brown outlines so that they would know which colour goes where. The parties get big with both girls inviting their friends! And there are always up to 3 art activities happening.

It struck me that a slight 2D effect would be very interesting. So decided to stick brightly coloured handmade paper (representing the intricately patterned and embroidered cloth laid on the elephants back) layered one on top of the other. This presented a problem as it would cover the elephants ear. Using a paper cutter, I cut around the ear and raised it up a bit. The effect was perfect.

This was a very ambitious project. I wanted the children to not just experience water colour pencils but also use gems and glitter glue to add to the 2D effect.

The elephant has a lot of jewels (ropes of gems and pearls) on the head, back and front legs. On a trip to a store which has a lot of very interesting scrap booking supplies, I came across a paint which, if used in tiny dots, gives a pearl effect.

So we were set. With sequins, gems, small "Gota" flowers (all thanks to endless visits, in my home town, to the tiny shops in even tinier lanes, at unbelievable prices). The girls join me on these little excursions to buy handmade paper and all kinds of bits and bobs which will be used for art and craft at some point in time. The result is an overloaded Ikea drawer cabinet dedicated to art material! As my older one says "Mom, it's fun to organise."

Now came the difficult or should I say 'the tedious ' bit. That of doing the cutouts of handmade paper for the Elephant's back. I decided on three layers - The biggest stuck completely to the Elephant drawing, the other 2 layers only at the top. This resulted in the papers curling up a bit, as did the ear. A very satisfactory 2D effect, I thought!

Now to put the whole thing together. Something I always worry about. So I set my younger one (then 9 years) to do the whole painting. She was very quick. And the best part was that although her work was not very neat, it still looked very nice.

The finished painting was mounted on beautiful beige handmade paper. Inexpensive glitter sticky tape in bright colours was used to frame the Elephant. "Gota" ribbons were used to create loops through which a wooden dowell was threaded through and the Painting was ready to be hung!

The only thing I would not allow the girls to do was the pearl tubes. Right pressure was needed to create pearls all the same size. There were too many kids and very little time. So on the day of the party 2 friends who always volunteer to help were put in charge of pearling and framing the finished Elephants on to the mounting Paper.

Beach Ball

2009-03-11T19:12:00.000-07:00

For my daughter's 10th birthday party we decided to do a "Beach Ball" theme party. The invites were printed on a beach ball picture picked randomly from the web. The party was at home and although we had enough happening to keep the kids entertained, I still wanted to go with one craft activity. What if it rains!!

So we picked beach bags from Daiso the $2 store and decided to personalise them. The bags were made of plastic and I was not sure what to decorate them with.

Beach Bags

A trip to Art Friend resulted in picking up Stencils with a beach theme and 'Painty pens' (otherwise known as 'paint markers') as advised by the staff there.

Stencils with a beach theme

They are oil based, permanent pens that work like paint brushes. The colours are vibrant and the pens are easier to control as compared to paint brushes. They also work on many different surfaces like plastic, glass, ceramic and metal and dry almost instantly.

Zig Painty Pens

In our test run we ran into a problem. The minute we lifted the stencil off the bag, the paint started spreading. Finally we decided to use permanent markers of the same colours (fortunately we discovered a whole set of coloured markers in my craft cupboard) and do the whole design outline first and then use the Painty pens to fill up.

Coloured Permanent Markers

It worked beautifully.