Open-ended Art: Black & White

I think Sophie’s bugs have finally migrated to my body. I feel really lousy but at least Sophie is getting better so I cannot complain. Anyway, I seriously could not think of anything interesting or creative to do with her for this week’s open-ended art. As a result, we kind of did EVERYTHING… hehe…



I searched our art cupboard for anything black and white last night and found some sandpaper, fabrics (Sophie’s bib), styrofoam wraps (fruit) and strings… among other things like Sophie’s rubber penguins. So I let her make footprints with them with white paint on black paper.



Then I showed her how to make net-like prints with a piece of styrofoam wrap. However, she insisted on using a brush to apply the white paint onto the styrofoam wrap to make the prints. I like the effect and we pasted the piece of wrap onto the paper as part of the art work. I was grinning silly when Sophie apologised for dropping the wrap by accident.



Whenever I am clueless about what I am doing, I tend to overdo to compensate for the lacking (if that makes any sense at all…) so the string was next. Sophie was not really keen to paint with a string, she much rather play with it and as usual, it ended up on the floor. Then she surprised me with “thank you, Mama” when I picked it up for her. Lovely…

End Product (I)

Okay, that should be enough I thought… but we did not stop there. Feeling encouraged, I gave some squares (sandpaper, fabric and shiny cardboard) to do a collage. She was quite cooperative and eager.



I was quite happy to know that Sophie could understand that she was making a flower with the white tissue paper. I was always worried that she could not make sense of whatever we have done for art. So when she tried to tell me what she was making, I felt quite excited. Too bad, she could not resist playing with the glue…



After that, we added a net at the bottom and some pipe cleaner at the side before squeezing a generous amount of glitter glue all over. Sophie was getting bored by then, so I thought it was a good time to call it a day, especially when my camera battery went flat!

End Product (II)

We suspected that Sophie's runny nose and cough was triggered by chalk dust because she started sneezing two days after we introduced chalk to her. And she recovered relatively well soon after we removed all the chalk. Although the chalk was "dust-free", her nose is far too sensitive to cope with so much dust. However, I was curious to her find out her tolerance level so I gave her some chalk to draw on a piece of black paper again. To my surprise, her nose started reacting immediately by producing mucus (some crust around her nostrils) and she kept scratching her nose (irritation). Well... bye bye chalk!

End Product (III)

Visit Mommies Wise Little Bookworms to see what the other mummies have done with their little ones this week.