Bridge

Today's flea market find -

A vintage double bass(?) bridge. It seems to be too large to be from a cello. Am thinking it could be a sort of backdrop to a ballerina automaton figure. The central arch is a bit too small to house a figure, unless I make it quite a small one ( it might have to be 'fixed' and not poseable).

colour mixing

Our y3's have been busy painting. Last week they 'did' the basic colour wheel - primary/secondary colours - and this week have been exploring graduated mixing! They started off with one primary colour and gradually added more of another.

Card

Drew a female pirate on a card today. She looks a bit wistful!

Have been drawing lots of cards lately. To me, it's just as quick as printing them and each one is unique. I've packaged them up with envelopes and even put them in those fancy cellophane pockets! I'm intending to sell them for £2 each or 3 for £5. I don't reckon that's too bad for an original piece of art.

Oh, and have just sold a painting and another 'A is for Art' book on Folksy! Yay!

collages and kicker!

Today the y1's (5/6 yr olds) started to create collage self-portraits. We stuck to using simple shapes. Think these will look quite effective when complete.

Latest automaton to leave the workbench is a prototype 'kicking' figure. It's a very rough creation just to test the mechanism. The squares on the cutting mat are 5cm just to give you an idea of scale.

It works...

...but I'm not happy with it. The mechanism is too fiddly to make and install and I've already worked out how to make it much simpler!

There's also no reason for the arms to be 'loose' as they don't really move. Am already thinking of two players tackling for the ball!

finds

My two bargains from the local second-hand shop this morning. £1 each! The abacus has wooden beads and is stamped as being made in West Germany, so has a bit of age. Not sure what I'll do with it yet, but the sorting box is destined to be part of an automaton of some descrtion. 

swan lake

The latest automaton to leave my workbench. 

Again, a simple mechanism. This frame on this one is made from a cut down domino box.

The ballerina figure is poseable. Compare this pic with the first.

Must make the effort to list these in my shops to gauge interest.

drawing

Yesterday our y1's tried their hand at self-portraits. I got them to do a drawing before teaching them a few basics. You can see the before pic in the top left corner. Not bad for a 5 year old!

And here's a pic of the completed rodeo automaton.