My Norwegian breakfast

I saw Avocados, Asparagus, salmon slices, some cream cheese, topped with some mozzarella cheese on two slices of thick white toasted bread from this dish that I had at Wild Honey. And it tasted bleah, very bland in fact. Hb had Eggs Benedict and we both had a coffee and soft drink each. This meal cost us SGD$85.00.

Hb and I felt totally ripped off.  Thank goodness we paid with vouchers we claimed from credit card points, so dissonance from Wild Honey was a lot more manageable.

I still cannot understand why there are crowds queuing outside their restaurant every weekend. The regular profile of people who goes to Wild Honey are young adults between the ages of 21-30, decked out in their hip clothes and bags, with some tourists thrown into the mix.

And the service is far from being desired. We had to order from the counter and we were charged service charge, for what in particular I wonder?

So, this visit to Wild Honey is our first and last. I know I will never ever go back there again. Even if a naive friend willingly wants to buy me a meal there. Anywhere but Wild Honey!

So I decided to embarked on the Breakfast Challenge to start eating healthy and to prove that my breakfast can taste as good, be alot healthier and look just as nice as a $85.00 breakfast meal at Wild Honey.

I made poached eggs for hb, with shaved ham on Danish bread, without the rich Eggs Benedict sauce. If u know that in a dish of Eggs Benedict, you will be ingesting a total of 5 egg yolks at one sitting, you probably will not want to ask for Cholesterol-laden Eggs Benedict anymore in a typical breakfast place. This is my very first time making poached eggs, and I wasted 1 egg (which got stuck in the pot during the poaching process).

I made pancakes too, making some changes to a recipe that I found on allrecipes.com, here’s the recipe if you want to explore making your own pancakes.

Instead of using maple syrup, you can also make your own fruit compote. Here’s some Apple and Blueberry compote on top of the pancakes. All u need to do is to slice up the apple thinly, without the skin, simmer in a small pan until some of the juices start to emerge. Then add about a tablespoon of brown sugar, and throw in the blueberries.

For a quick pancake breakfast, I divided the dry ingredients into 4 for 2 servings each. Put the dry ingredients in 4 plastic bags and keep them in the fridge and only added the wet ingredients in the mix, when I was ready to fry the pancakes in the mornings.

Apart from these slightly more rich breakfasts, I tend to go for these regular healthy options daily.

Toast again, with grapefruit, cherry tomatoes and salad with Wafu dressing

Walnut danish, fruits and salad

Ham on boule bread with jam, fruits and salad

More variety of fruits and a Passion fruit butter with cheese on boule

Hot lemon tea, it actually tastes just as good as cold ice tea.

Smelly yummy cheese with crackers, dried apricots and nuts to share with hb on weekends. To make sure that he does not reach for the packet of Doritos for that morning.

Just a simple breakfast of a sunny side up with ham on bread.

So did I manage to prove that my meals are healthier and look just as good as what they have in Wild Honey?

I think I did.

So take that, Wild Honey. I definitely do not need to pay for a $85.00 breakfast meal and think that I am eating so well.

P.S

All photos in this post were taken with my iPhone 4s, using Instagram filters and natural light from the windows. No other DI were done to these photos.

So instead of hoarding them at home, I have decided to give them away to anyone who wants to start their craft journey with these felt mascots. I have 2 copies of ‘The Cute Book’ by Aranzi Aronzo.

The Cute Book has simple to follow patterns and instructions to make cute Aranzi Aronzo mascots.

You really don’t need fabulous sewing skills to make these felt mascots, as these are easy to do and the results are oh so cute. All you need is felt from Daiso or Spotlight, some sewing thread, scissors and cotton balls to stuff these little mascots. There are also plenty of ideas listed in the book how you can use these mascots. Making these mascots can also be a fun activity for your child, if he/she is above 7 years old.

Mascots made by http://kimberlypetersen.typepad.com/

The Cute Book Cat mascots from blog.craftzine.com

If you do not win the giveaway, you can easily download the pdf pattern here, courtesy of blog.craftzine.com

So do drop me a comment here, if you want a chance to win this giveaway. I will be using random.org to pick the two winners for this book.

Giveaway closes 21st May 2012.

I tend to have clear skin, except for one or two teeny zits during PMS, but apart from that, relatively clear skin.

Until last month, little red bumps that looked liked acne started popping up all over the face (horrors!). I had a tough time looking at myself in the mirror (yes, I am vain like that), and even a tougher time telling myself never to pick on those zits.

Maybe it was the hormones that went berserk last month, or stress, but I decided that I should do something about my diet and see if it improved things. So I gave myself a challenge, to start with breakfast.

My breakfast used to look like that :

The most, after a weekend of over-eating, I would have a guilt-free detox breakfast like that (but over-compensate it during lunch)

So, I tried to improve my breakfast, by eating mom’s freshly baked Hot Cross Buns during breakfast and some fruits.

Then I figured I should try to reduce process foods out of my diet, stopped buying Betty Crocker’s quick mix pancakes. Made some changes to a recipe that I found online, and started making my own pancakes.

Here’s some home-made pancakes on a healthier day with yogurt and nuts. I still allow myself some maple syrup and fruit compote over the pancakes some mornings.

Breakfast got a bit healthier, when I discovered Wafu sauce, a Japanese Soy Sauce and Sesame dressing from the supermarket. That sauce makes any type of fresh vegetables taste better.

And I discovered that cream cheese on bread with cherry tomatoes actually tasted quite good.

And experimented with some Bento-style arrangements by using cookie cutters on leftover pancakes from K. Don’t try bolled Lotus in your salad though, it might look quite interesting on the plate, but tasted quite vile with Wafu dressing.

I still can’t do without tea or decaffeinated coffee every breakfast though, and a spot of butter on my toast.

And started to make that consistent effort to have a good balance of fruits and fresh veggies every breakfast. Even K was convinced that Mommy’s breakfast looked alot more interesting than his, and starting sharing my breakfast on some mornings

It was when I started adding a fresh salad and a mix of fruits, the process of setting up breakfast every morning got a lot more fun. I started trying different combinations of fruits, different spreads for my toast (I still can’t cut out white bread from my diet, as I am not a fan of whole-meal).

And the result after a month?

My skin is now clear. Only with a teeny little zit during PMS recently, and I am feeling alot more energetic through the day.

Do give this healthy breakfast challenge a try, or try adding more fresh fruits and vegetables into a meal daily. I am quite sure you will start feeling the difference to your skin and energy levels after a few weeks.

Do share what does your regular breakfast consists of?

When he first dip his brush into the watercolor palette and applied the brush on the drawing paper, he frowned at what he saw, and told me that he did not like water-colours. As the paint colors could hardly be seen (we have been using tempera paints, and the color pigments on paper is a lot darker)

I had to spend some time explaining to him that watercolors are usually very light and transparent. Did a sample creation of my own artwork with watercolors to demonstrate that watercolors have a very different outcome on paper, compared to the tempera and poster color paints that he was used to.

After he was convinced that watercolors were different and not so bad after all, he went on to paint an ‘abstract’ creation of gradation shades of green and orange. Then he ran into his room and came back to the hall with a pack of markers, and started adding on to his artwork.

Again, all I saw was stick people, differentiated in groups of different colors, with speech bubbles coming out of their heads and lots of numbers. Sure looks like his usual style of drawing, I thought. But boy, was I blown away when I asked him what was this artwork all about.

He told me to write all that he will dictate to me. As this dictation will be a write-up for his ‘Masterpiece’ (in his own words), next to his drawing. Very much like how art museums always have a short explanation of the artwork displayed next the artwork itself.

“It is in Japan because of the flag, the Japanese people (referring to the stick people in blue) are looking at the art piece in the museum. And the tourists too, the American guy cut his leg when he was kicking the sign (the stick people drawn with a pencil). The Turkey people (the ones in red) just love the art, they are saying, “Is this a good artist? But if you don’t see and don’t make this, you are a bad artist.” The ones in orange are from Malaysia, they just love cupcakes and they think that this is a extinct cupcake.

But actually the sign says that it is extinct guns and weapons and extinct volcanoes too, and some extinct dead people. The art is made in 1963. The purple numbers means that the people can be any age to look at the art piece. 5 and 6 years olds can also look at it. There is a TV on top so that the 5, 6 year olds can watch the TV and be distracted away from the violent art piece.

The statue has extinct buildings and houses and dinosaurs too. The house is 700,000 years old and they are extinct and crushed. The blocks inside the art piece (I think he meant apartment blocks) has the numbers 65 and 75. There are extinct animals and people. When the people are 100 years old, they die, but the animals only die when they are 200 years old.

Outside the museum there is a sign that says, the museum opens at 7 o’clock. And the outside of the door says ‘Open and Close at 7 o’clock’. The museum advertises robots fighting but the robots will explode in 1963.’

Then he loudly exclaimed, “That’s it. This is my masterpiece and I am an artist today – not an author and illustrator, so you have to write for me.”

I was quite amused by what he said. The word ‘tourist’ was explained to him two days ago when we spent an afternoon at Sentosa. Hearing the story that he created behind this art piece gave a good glimpse into the things that he tends to spend a lot more time thinking about. While others were learnt through new picture books that we read the last 1 month. From dinosaurs, weapons, volcanoes, dead people, people from different countries, violence in art, signs, time and year, and advertising.

What I learnt from this experience :

- There were facts addressed in his story that did not correlate with the facts that he learnt; i.e, about buildings and people being extinct, but I made a point not to correct him. This activity was meant to encourage higher level of abstract thinking through his creations (thinking out-of-the-box) and not correctly answer factual information.

- This demonstrated how art can help with a child’s self-expression, create opportunities for problem solving and creative stories behind the art work. There have been research studies done to prove that art therapy works in children to bring out suppressed emotions to the surface, where parents/teacher can help address them.

- It proves that parents should never under-estimate the simplicity of symbolism used in open-ended art. Free-expression can be encouraged in open-ended art, and children can be given the freedom to add any symbols that they want in their creations; words, numbers or anything abstract. Most importantly, ask open-ended questions after the child have finished the artwork and encourage the dictation of the stories behind their creations.

- Visiting art museums can be beneficial for children. Children exhibits may be beneficial as it gives children the avenue to play and interact with the displays that are set up, but I think what is more beneficial is for the child to experience the regular art exhibits in the museum.

from Roubs Production Flick

Visiting the art museum is a wonderful way to encourage your child’s appreciation and understanding of the arts. But do let them enjoy the art themselves. By all means, read the description of the art piece, the interpretation of the work by the artist. But let them enjoy the art, taking in the colors, the emotions behind each creation and the artist’s inspiration. Don’t feel pressured that you will need to interpret everything for them and have to ask them plenty of questions on each piece.

After experiencing such interesting outcomes and watching the process from our home-learning art lessons, I am so motivated to pursue more art experiences moving forward. K is not the only one who is learning from his art experiences, I am learning just as much from these art experiences too!

Do give this method a try with your next open-ended art experience with your child, and I am sure your child will delight you with their little interesting stories behind their art creations.

An edited version of this article was published on myplayschool.net

And here is how I incorporated open ended outcomes to a structured art experience.

I don’t know why children are provided with a plethora of coloring activities in preschool. They do colouring activities in school, colour in Sunday school classes, colour while at a child assigned area in a mall, colour when they are given crayons and coloring pages while waiting for their food to be served in a child-friendly restaurant.

Colouring does aid in fine-motor skills training, help children develop compliant skills by coloring within the lines, improve concentration and attention span, and builds color awareness by learning how to use the right colors for the right items in the picture. But I think, coloring probably benefits adults more than it does benefits the children, as it keeps the children busy and quiet for a while.

In fact, I think the Sunday School that K attends over-does it with coloring every week. All they do, after teaching children about a character development lesson for that Sunday, is to get them to color till the end of the lesson  So lately when the teacher feedback that K does not stop talking during class, I am very sure that it is an indication that coloring is boring him tremendously in class! He is showing resistance lately when it comes to completing his homework from school. He finishes the written sections but when it comes to coloring, he tells me that he gets very tired of coloring.

But does coloring have a place in teaching young children art? According to the research of Viktor Lowenfeld, coloring book pages take almost all creative thinking away from 50-60% of children. The other 40% of children may not be effected as they may have been given other creative exposure to open ended art experiences to encourage their creativity. In fact, if a child continually focus on only colouring, he might find it hard to be satisfied with his own drawing. And might get frustrated when his drawings do not look like the adult drawings in coloring books.

I don’t intend to stop K from coloring, however, I will not provide any form of structured pages coloring activities from the art experiences that I will provide for him during our home-learning art sessions. Here’s is an article that I wrote for myplayschool.net about the pros and cons of Structured Art and Open-ended art experiences.

So when I came across Susan Striker’s Anti-colouring book 3 years ago, I knew that I had to get a copy of that book for Kyle when he turned 5. These Anti-Colouring books with their open-ended ideas of presenting ‘canvases’ for children to draw and create on the pages will encourage opportunities for critical thinking, problem solving and thinking “outside the box”. Here are some sample pages to try, best recommended for kids above 5 years old.

For our recent warmup activity for our open-ended art lesson, I got him to try a page from the book. This was the first time that K encountered an open art activity which involved ‘adding on’ to some ideas on the page, he was a little apprehensive to try it at first, but with some encouragement and modeling, he started adding onto the page.

K’s drawing strongly reflects that he is in the symbolic stage of his art development, and enjoys incorporating words and numbers into his drawings.

We then went on to an open-ended art activity, and I was quite amazed by the result of it.

Read my next post tomorrow to find out what transpired during the activity.

In the meantime, here’s a post I wrote in myplayschool.net of a structured art activity I did with K, incorporating a open-ended outcome.

I used to have a problem with being assertive when I was a young adult. Always struggled with saying ‘No’ when someone tried push their opinions on me or tried to get me to do things their way. Then I end up feeling fed up and resentful that I have to see things through, just because I did not have the guts at that moment to stand up for myself.

I became a lot more assertive after becoming a mom. In fact, it all started with an episode at work, when I was being unfairly evaluated at a year-end appraisal due to being pregnant. I presented my case to regional HR for the unfair treatment, but was prepared to move on to a new job after that episode. I was severely ‘marked’ by my boss who hated my guts, but thankfully, I found a new job after 2 months.

I encountered two episodes this week on how assertiveness might / might not work to a person’s advantage.

The first episode happened when I had to make a trip down to ACRA to get some paperwork completed. While at ACRA, at the customer service counter, I was brushed off by this lady who obviously had little idea what a customer service job entails. I tried to bring up my issue three times and all she did before listening what I had to say, brushed me off and told me that I had to make my payment at the internet kiosks on site.

After struggling for like 15 minutes, I realized that the issue could not be resolved with a simple click of the button. I went back to the customer service counter, tried to tell this lady at the counter that I was experiencing a problem, but got brushed off 2 more times, as she continued to insist that all I could do was to make payment at the kiosk.

At that moment, I lost patience, and raised my voice, “Now you listen! I am having problems with my payment, as your system put my application on hold since yesterday. You have to stop telling me to go to the internet kiosk and make the payment, as the method does not work anymore for me. I do not want to make my way all the way here, and be told to use the internet to the make the payment, when I could have easily done it at home, if I did not have this problem. So are you able to help or not!”

She started fumbling with her response when she realized that she had to manage a not so happy customer in front of her. She answered weakly, “You never tell me.” I raised my voice at her again, and said, “Did you bother to listen in the first place? You didn’t! All you did was to brush me off many times when I tried to bring up this issue to you!”

Within the next 5 minutes of this exchange, my problem was solved.

Could I have done it differently? Probably not. Giving her that nice, gentle, and understanding response will not have solve my problem so quickly. Sometimes, one have have got to be assertive, especially when it comes to dealing with lousy service.

The second episode happened in an underground carpark, as I was in a car with K, waiting for hb. A lady came along with her supermarket trolley, knocked on the window when she saw K seated at the driver’s seat, who was pretending to drive. She opened the car door and said to K, “Young man, you cannot be in the front seat, turn off the engine now, as you are destroying the environment!” As I was seated behind the driver’s seat, I opened the door and asked the woman if I could help her. She immediately blasted at me with these words, “You are very irresponsible, to leave the engine running, you will destroy the environment! How can you do that, turn off the engine now!” I looked at her, with a deadpan expression said, “Sure…” and then closed the car door.

By now, I was actually quite taken back by how someone could infringe into my personal space, be so aggressive towards me and to tell me what to do with my car. Even though I was fully aware that I was not environmentally responsible, by leaving a stationery car engine running, and have the air conditioned in the car turned on for the sake of our comfort. But to hear it in such a rude, aggressive and self-righteous tone, just prompted me to ignore the point that she was trying to make with her speech.

About 5 minutes later, she came around to my car again, open my door one more time, and starting blasting at me, “I told you to turn off the engine, how can you leave the engine running like that, and you have been doing it for the last 5 minutes!” By this time, I was getting quite irritated by this intrusion of my privacy. But I just looked at her in a deadpan voice and answered, “Why don’t you stop driving altogether then?” With my rebuttal, she got even more indignant and started, “This is a shared environment, by doing this, you are destroying our shared environment. How can you do this, you better turn off the engine now, it is a shared environment…” She continued repeating the same words about how this was a shared environment to people who walked pass her, and was ignored.

All I did after her speech, was to reach out for my car door, closed it and I continue talking with K. While from the corner of my eye, I saw her stand outside my door for another 10 seconds before walking back to her BMW car and driving off in a huff.

This lady chose to be assertive at the wrong place, wrong time and at the wrong person. All she did with her assertiveness was to pushed my wrong ‘buttons’. I was in my ‘rebellious teenager’ mood where the rebel in me just said, “Just make me.” For that moment, I just refused to be coerced into doing anything.

For the record, this lady did not look crazy. She was dressed neatly, spoke proper english, carried herself like a normal person and looked like she had a supermarket trolley filled with organic goods. But she sure has got lousy EQ. If she had approached me differently, or told this to me in a different tone or manner, I would have willingly or even felt embarrassed enough to turn off the engine immediately. In fact, I can’t really tell if she was being assertive, or just plain aggressive.

How would you have responded if you are being confronted with such assertiveness or aggressiveness, like in this instance?

After the initial warm-up, I showed him a picture of a cat like this picture here,

and I told him that he could draw cats. Any type of cats, it can look like this, or he can draw his own cat.

(K, I think is a closet cat lover. He claims that he prefers a dog for a pet, but the soft-toys that he has developed affinity for are all cats, and there are like at least 4 different ones).

K went with the suggestion of drawing his own cat, or rather, cats and ended up with a drawing like this.

These stick men figures in the picture shows that K is still in the symbolic art stage, and he hasn’t move to representational stage. (Here is an informational article about the stages of art development in a child OR do read Susan Striker’s Young at Art to understand more about children’s art development).

According to Mona Brookes and Susan’s Striker’s books, Symbolic drawing is perfectly normal in a child’s development. Parents or art educators should try not to interfere with their child’s effort to express him/herself through this form. It should not be compared to realistic drawing, and it is best not to push the child to prematurely stop this activity. When children draw symbolically, they have internal conversations about what they are drawing, which in turn, helps them communicate and deal with symbols.

If I did not read both books, I might have the common notion that I should try to ‘help’ my child to ‘progress’ to the representational/ realism drawing stage, and be naturally concerned that he is possibly slow in his drawing development.

As mentioned in the books, only the rare child learns how to draw realistically or representationally on his own. Learning to draw is like learning to play the piano, learning to dance or to write. There are the occasional gifted or talented child who picks it all by himself/herself.

Symbolic drawing is a lot about how the child communicates and in this instance tell a story. As K went on to tell me that after illustrating the pictures, he wanted to author his drawings.

Text deciphered :

‘The cats are running away from us

We must do something

About the cats

We must catch them

Ok GT Ng (apparently that’s him) Ok spiderman

We need the gold

So we need to punch the cats face

Ok we need to kill them’

At this juncture, he told me, “Imagine you read all that, and then go to sleep, you will have a bad dream.” So he told me that it is important that he adds the last sentence, to justify the violence of punching and killing  -_-

‘They are bad cats’

Again, this development did not happen overnight, as it started with our daily read-alouds, highlighting the illustrator’s name and the author’s name of each book. And then repeatedly telling him that we all can be illustrators and authors too.

His writing journey started almost 6-8 months ago, started with simple 1-2 element drawings, and simple phonetically sounded words. As he continued with his line drawings leisurely whenever he wanted to draw, he did occasionally write some words with the drawings.

Often I am unable to figure out the words, until he ‘reads’ it out for me, but I never once gave him the pressure to spell the words correctly from the start. Also i did not correct his use of upper and lower case in his words, as I believe ability to use upper case or lower case in sentences, will eventually be picked up from our daily read-alouds.

It was only from this month, that he has been requesting to spell the words correctly. So he tells me the sentences that he wants to use to describe his drawings, I then encourage him to sound out words phonetically, letter by letter.

So this experience have proven that indeed drawings or art have lots of direct influences in a child development in literacy, and possibly many other academic areas as well.

Next post on Home Learning Art Lessons – Learning about the forms of shapes and exploring oil pastels with abstract art.

This post was published in myplayschool.net

I used to agree with this whole-heartedly, after hearing all too familiar exclamations from proud parents from the baby boomer generation about their children who have shown some good results in in art; “My son, XX, draw/created this all by his imagination. See how unique it is, I haven’t seen anything that look like that before!”

But after reading this book a while back, it has changed a lot of pre-conceived notions that I used to have about children learning art. And has truly empowered me to believe that even as a non-artist, it is possible to nurture my child’s creativity and interest for art.

‘Drawing with Children – A Creative Method for Adult Beginners too’ by Mona Brookes

This book is written from the perspective of an international acclaimed art educator who runs her own art school in the States. Who have successfully brought out the artists in many young children to middle age adults.

Many of the people whom her art programme have nurtured, show little or no prior talent in art. ‘A real artist draws from his/her imagination and don’t need to copy things.’ was one of the key points that were mentioned in the book that strongly de-mystified the process of learning art.

Most renowned artists who work with realism, or subjects in nature or animals, usually observe these things in its natural environment. Also use photographs, look at other visual references and make rough sketches from picture of those things, so as to study the structure and shape of what they will draw. Some will re-arrange, add ideas from their imagination, or remove some details from the original picture to create their original piece of artwork.

What is even more interesting, is that famous artists like Picasso and Michelangelo both copied artists work for two years as part of their initial art training. Degas also worked with photographs of his subjects, and plenty of painters have used other paintings for inspiration.

Two dancers by Edgar Degas

So does this fact about famous artist dis-mystify the process of how children/adult can learn art?

Imagination does play a huge part in the process of art, however it is not mutually exclusive from how people can learn or observe from visual references.

Her book also brought out valid arguments towards:

- why one does not need to exhibit a talent to be given formal lessons in art,

- the ability to draw can be learnt,

- structure drawings lessons are appropriate for young children. Children do not just develop their ability through free exploration and expression only.

I highly recommend this book if you are keen to start your own journey towards becoming an artist, or plan to embark on a DIY home-learning journey to teach your child art.

As I continue on my Art Home-Learning journey with K, I will be making numerous references to the techniques mentioned in this book.

Out of curiosity, I walked into an art school with K on Saturday.

I never really had the intention of signing K up for an art lesson, it was just an attempt to see if the art classes offered from this school was worth sending a child to. The trial was after all free, so the cheap mom in me grabbed the opportunity for K to experience a short session and to evaluate the programme.

The boy was very enthusiastic and gamed to attend the trial, since he tend to enjoy doing those paint art craft activities in those malls, and thought that this was something similar.

Before K entered the class,  I asked the lady at the counter area a whole host of questions;

Me : Can I know how are the lessons conducted?

Lady : We will show you the final product after the class so that you can decide if the programme is suitable for your child.

Me : Arhh.. isn’t art more about the process and not the product?

(After reading those early childhood art development books from Susan Striker and attempting many art activities with K from some of Mary Ann Kohl books. Hearing this words from her sounded the alarm bells in my head, especially when I am so influenced by these authors that art is ‘the process and not the product that matters’, when it comes to teaching art to young children).

Lady : (she looked quizzically at my comment)

Me : Oh ok, what I meant was, what is the structure of the lesson like? What are the children taught and how does the teacher teach them?

Lady : Oh 30 minutes, we will let the children do free hand drawing. Then the next 30 minutes of the class the child will do this activity.

The lady behind the counter showed me a A4 printer paper that was divided into half, the top part of the paper showed a black-line drawing of an apple, and the bottom half was blank.

Lady : The child will be asked to draw this apple, and use oil pastels to color the picture. Afterwards, the teacher will guide the child to teach some techniques of blending, just like these pictures you see on the wall. (She pointed to the colored creations pasted on the studio’s wall that were done by the other students)

Me : So what exactly does a child learn in foundation class, and then after that, what do they learn when they progress to the higher levels?

Lady : Foundation course is for kids between 4-6, where they will do tracing, follow the dotted lines in the picture, and then color in the picture with the blending methods that the teacher will teach. Then after that, when the teacher thinks that the child is ready, we will move the child to Level 1. They will learn composition, layering, and the gradation of colors. See this picture (she pointed to another set of pictures, with a consistent Orange in the middle of the picture, and the rest of the pictures was filled with the children’s own drawings). These pictures are from Level 1 and 2, the child will be given a picture with a line drawing of a orange, while the rest of the picture is blank. The child can fill in the picture with their own drawings and then blend the colors on the picture.

Right after 45 minutes, Kyle emerged from the class, and the lady behind the counter showed me his ‘product’ from the class. I was not able to show the picture on this blog (they are probably afraid of people like me, who will do this…heh). And what I saw was a nicely blended picture (right to left – dark red to lighter red, in 3 gradated shades) of the apple on top, and Kyle’s self-drawn and colored purple apple at the bottom of the paper.

Well, I squirmed myself out of not signing up for the classes, by telling the lady behind the counter that I am still evaluating which art school to send Kyle to.

I think if a child attends the class, they might eventually reach this stage of being able to blend an apple, or any other thing very nicely.

Just a random picture of an oil pastel blended apple from google

I told hb that the experience was quite a disappointment, and his remarks were, “It is only $35.00 per class, what do you expect? Blending is after all still an art technique to teach the young ones. This is a supervised activity of sorts for the young children, you can’t expect the teacher to be passing down the technical details of art in that 30 minutes per lesson to the child. I hope you are not expecting that the teachers are art graduates or NAFA trained? Art is like how it has been in ancient times, children go under the tutelage of famous artists, who all then hand down their expertise. Teaching art needs a lot more time and effort on the part of the teacher.

I did not quite agree with the part about being an artist to teach a child art. I am not an artist, but I think using the right techniques + with the help of books, guiding K over time to build his creativity and interest for art is possible. I have after all taught myself to sew and to craft, and I think that can be considered another kind of art form.

So, I walked straight to the bookshop right after K’s trial session, to buy a box of 50 oil pastels for K.

Next up, art lessons home-learning style!

See this youtube video for quick tips on blending with oil pastels

See this previous post on picture books about art and creativity.

And here is a great article from Sarah of The Playful Parents on introducing the concept of geometric shapes in art, as shape is a foundational concept in teaching a child art.

K : Why are u angry with daddy sometimes?

Mom : Because sometimes people do silly things, including your daddy.

K : Like what silly things?

Mom : It is the same as when you do a silly thing, then mommy gets upset with you.

K : What silly thing did daddy do?

K : Like what?

Mom : Adults do silly things but it can be different from the silly things children do.

K : Like what? Like what?

K : Is it like when I dig my nose and eat my booger…Is it like that?