Tiny clay beginnings

It's coming together.
This idea has been bubbling about in my head for a month or two. I made one attempt at sketching/painting out my ideas, and that was enough to show me that I needed to go 3D to really explore my ideas.

We have a Secret Garden for our preschoolers. It's looking a little tired currently, and the cubby that was in there deteriorated within a few months and desperately needs to be replaced.

Over a year ago I went to a workshop with Rusty Keeler from earthplay.net
Some of his ideas got me inspired, some of the images have stayed with me very strongly, bubbling in the background waiting for an avenue to be exploited. One said image was of a children's cubby made from cob; a mix of straw, clay and sand, mixed together by stamping it into a workable mass, then built up; no need for structural support or construction knowledge/training. You just build.

And this year I'm becoming our Outdoor Teacher.
I'm inspired.
I'm hoping to design and construct with the children and families our own cubby, built with our own hands.

So now I have my own little model made now. Which means it's time for some pictures.

The structure as a whole:

Fern impressions in one side:

Shelf/windowsill, bench, sink. This window would face the primary entrance to the Secret Garden.

View in through the doorway, note the little storage/hiding spaces under the bench seat? The intention is for children to make mosaic tiled squares to fit on the seat and windowsills (currently represented by buttons):

View from above, I used beads to represent having wishing stones pressed into the cob around the window. This windowsill is shaped to become a writing/drawing desk for children sitting on the bench. The cut green straws are representing how I want to fit glass jars into the walls to let light in, an intriguing little pocket:

And finally a tree worked in clay to 'grow' up the side, with leaf impressions pressed into the clay, the leaves were dusted with chalk to make the impressions more visible:

I'm nervous about this project. And I'm sure it'll evolve. This is my initial model, I'm looking forward to seeing how future incarnations look after integrating the children's own inspirations. Tomorrow I get to show this model to our Director. I hope she likes it, and isn't too overwhelmed.

Deep in the Research

So I'm deep in the research again.
Today it's research into outdoor play-spaces for children and inspiration for this crazy cob house project.

It's going to be a bit of a process of discovery for all of us. So many ideas to bubble through.

So my initial plan is to get some photos of the space we'll be building in. I want to have a brainstorming session where we talk about what we'd like to build in our own cubby house. I want to get drawing, I want to show them inspirational images, I want to ask about building materials (3 Little Pigs anyone?).

I want to study light and construction. Studying construction will be fun because I want to explore it in different scales; drawing, small scale cardboard/clay/wood, then large scale so they can feel the space it will take up and really assess what it will need.

I'm intending on building a marquet (formal sculptural term there, just a small scale model to plan out my larger project). I already have some watercolour paintings going with ideas for mosaics. This involves reconstituting the mass of dried clay I had out in the shed. So for the last three days those lumps have been soaking in buckets. Today was the day for squishing and mixing up the clay, breaking up the lumps, and splotting it out onto boards to dry from lumpy slush into something I can wedge into a workable building material.

This of course led to my monkeys getting their hands in to help, or at least to fling mud about and paint it on their bellies. After a minor mis-hap with a spilled lump of mud and a bath or two the monkeys are in bed and mostly clean.

So a day or two for the clay to become workable, then I'm up to building to get my own ideas into something I can really see. I'm struggling to draw what I can imagine right now, I really need the 3D format.

Current excitements:
The thought of preschoolers building their own cubbies, seeing what they imagine and desire
And the thought of a big community build to actually construct our own cob cubby house in our Secret Garden.

Ideas to work through in the week left of my holidays:
plans and program for outdoor play
Collect resources for children's construction and for loose construction bits in the outdoor space

Other ideas:
Talk to the botanic gardens about a preschooler visit
Talk to other staff about their ideas and needs for the outdoor space
Build a display to inspire and inform parents, with a shopping list for donations
Start sourcing friendly plants

'My Loves Blue'

So I've gotten a little inspired to put my mess of ideas out there to the blogging world.

I'm hoping to use this as a place to record my professional progress both as a Children's Services Educator in a long day care service at ANU, and my bumbling about in my own creative endeavours.

A couple of years ago (barely pre-daughter #2) I ran Creative Image Making workshops with the toddlers and preschoolers of my centre. In 2009 this culminated in a beautiful exhibition of the children's work for the year. Around the walls of the room we had displayed a selection of all of their creative adventures with me, all set for their parents to view and have as a backdrop to the AGM.

The year had been so full. The children had used my DSLR camera to take their own photos (the parents didn't believe some of the shots were taken by 4 year olds). We'd designed our own monsters inspired by the Where the Wild Things Are book, and created monster masks. We'd studied a real honeycomb which some bees had started setting up in my yard at home. We'd studied light and shadow with an overhead projector, and reflected light with mirrors. We'd had one huge block making our own space ship from a giant cardboard box (that box was thoroughly loved to death over the space of 3-4 months). We'd painted canvas and batik, woven with wool and created spaces for sea creatures.

I'm out of time today, but I'll try to post up some of the photos and experiences in future posts.
Next year begins an exciting adventure into being an Outdoor and Art teacher for my centre. I have bubbling ideas of Sunflower Circles, Cob Cubbies and Whimsical Wild Wonderment. I hope to share some of it with you.

Oh, and the title of this post comes from a beautiful toddler coming in to my art workshop one morning, still tearful from separation. I asked her if she wanted to join in, she nodded, I asked her what colour paper she'd like and she responded "My loves blue". Something about the phrase makes my heart happy.