Our Summer tradition at Brushstrokes

Summer break is over and the kids are back at school, but today I wanted to share one of our Summer traditions. It's a fun indoor activity for any time of year and a great tradition to start.

With the long Summer break here in the US I'm always looking for fun things to do to keep the kids occupied. There are certain activities that are a Summer tradition - going to camp, heading to the beach, spending time at the pool, playing in the park... And then there are the activities that have become our very own Summer traditions. 

One such thing is our annual visit to Brushstrokes Studio here in Berkeley. Every Summer break the kids and I spend an afternoon at Brushstrokes painting a ceramic plate each. It started off as a one off, but when I realized how wonderful it would be for the kids to each have a collection of their own hand painted plates when they're older I decided that we'd make it an annual tradition. We've done it five Summers in a row so far, and even just in that short amount of time it's amazing looking back at how the kids' artistic skills have developed. It's also fun way to keep track of their interests at the time. 

This Summer break the girls couldn't wait to head to Brushstrokes and paint their plates. They had been coming up with ideas for quite some time and were eager to set paintbrush to plate. Here's a look at what they created this year.

52 Weeks: Week 19

Week 19: Art Show

Last Thursday we visited an art exhibition featuring our very own little artist.

Students at Ava's school take part in an art education program with teachers from Kala Art Institute here in Berkeley. Now that the school year is coming to an end (eek!) the educators at Kala have put together an exhibition of work created by all students at Ava's school. Unlike a regular school art show that would generally be on display in a school auditorium, this exhibition is on display at the Kala Gallery. An actual gallery! How cool is that?

Last Thursday was the opening night of the exhibition so we headed to the Kala Gallery to check out the artwork on display.

Washed Ashore at San Francisco Zoo

Recently we visited an amazing exhibition at San Francisco Zoo called Washed Away.

Created for the The Artula Institute for Arts & Environmental Education under the leadership of Angela Haseltine Pozzi, Washed Away features sculptures of sea creatures made from debris and plastic pollution collected from Pacific beaches. Over the last three years community members have collected over 11 tonnes of debris from Pacific beaches to create more than thirty sculptures. These sculptures form a travelling exhibit and education programs that tours the country to highlight the impact that marine pollution has on wildlife.

Visitors to the exhibition are greeted at the entry of the exhibition by a sculpture of a sea lion pup.

SFMOMA On the Go at Crissy Field

Over the weekend we headed into the city to check out a few places we've been meaning to visit. Our first destination was the San Francisco Cable Car Museum (which I'll write about in another post soon) and our second destination was Crissy Field down by the Golden Gate Bridge.

We've visited Crissy Field quite a few times in the past though I don't think I've ever written about it on Little Hiccups. While Crissy Field is a great park with spectacular views over the Bay and Golden Gate Bridge, and therefore a popular tourist destination in its own right the reason for our visit this weekend was specifically to check out an outdoor art exhibition. Back in June last year SF Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) closed its doors due to extensive building renovations set to be completed in 2016. While the museum is closed SFMOMA will continue to hold exhibitions around the Bay Area as part of their SFMOMA On the Go program.

The expansive grassy park that is Crissy Field is currently home to one such exhibition featuring eight large sculptures by artist Mark di Suvero. The monumental sculptures date from 1967 through to 2012 and have been brought to San Francisco from all across the country. The Golden Gate Bridge, which has clearly been an inspiration throughout the artist's career makes the perfect back drop to this exhibition.

Roadworks Festival 2012

It's been a busy few weeks here at Little Hiccups with a big road trip, visits from family and friends and a quick European vacation. More on all of that later. In the meantime I thought I'd share an event that we attended this weekend here in San Francisco.

Each year the San Francisco Center for the Book holds their annual Roadworks Festival. The major drawcard of this festival is the steam roller produced linoleum block prints. Last year we missed out on attending the Roadworks Festival as it was held a few weeks before our arrival in the states. I was pretty excited that we could make it this year.

One of my favourite prints from the day by Mike Kimball

The kids loved watching the steam roller roll over the lino block, paper and padding. The results were amazing producing some spectacular prints - all of which are available to purchase for $500.00. Now if only I had a spare wall and a spare wad of cash...

Here's a look at the steam roller printing in action.

Setting up the lino block and paper for printing

Ready to roll

Rolling, rolling, rolling

Lifting off the print

Perfect!

Cleaning up one of the lino blocks

As well as the steam roller printing there were plenty of activities to keep us busy. Ava in particular was keen to try out all sorts of printing and book crafts.

Ava's first project (and the one she was most excited about) was making her own little note book. She started by printing an image on the cover using a table top printing press...

Ava prints an image onto the cover of her note book

Cover printed

Then it was time to bind the pages and cover together using a simple stitch technique...

Ava stitches her book together

All bound together

Once Ava's book was bound together she printed a design inside using a lino block.

Ava rolls out the ink

Rolling the ink onto the lino block

Here comes the print

Voila!

Next up Ava made badges for Lola and herself. She chose images from a magazine and squeezed them together with the badge components in the badge press. The lady helping Ava was surprised that she could work the press all on her own. Ava was pretty pleased with herself about this! She's very strong, you know ;)

Ready to squeeze the badge parts together

Use those muscles!

Next up was fruit and vegetable printing courtesy of Whole Foods supermarket. Ava printed with celery, capsicum, apples and lemons to create a brightly coloured lunch bag. Ava was a pro at printing with fruit and vegetables given her previous experience with this crafty project.

Printing with capsicum

Printing with celery

One of a kind printed lunch bag 

The last craft project that Ava worked on was a print on the Vandercook press. This is similar to the press that I used when I did my letterpress workshop earlier in the year.

Crimping the paper in place

Starting to move the roller

It's pretty heavy!

Another successful print

We had a lovely afternoon in the sun watching the printing and taking part in the activities. The festival featured plenty of stalls from local artists and designers and I had to try my very hardest not to buy almost everything I saw. San Francisco boasts so many wonderful, talented artists. I'd love to be able to purchase one of the prints produced on the day. Oh how special that would be!

Mike Kimball's steam roller print features the shipping cranes synonymous with Oakland's waterfront 

Steam roller prints by Anna Branning, Caitlin Mattisson and  Rik Olson

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

This Tuesday it was free entry day at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) so the girls and I went on an adventure in modern art.

Enigmatic Combat by Arshile Gorky was one of our favourites

Inspired by this post on Design Mom about visiting art galleries with kids, I decided to prepare a little treasure hunt for Ava to stave on the dreaded "I'm bored" comments which usually go hand in hand with kids and art galleries. Ava is quite fond of a treasure hunt and is always eager to hunt down every last item - no matter how boring it may seem for a five year old! I prepared a treasure hunt of eight paintings and two sculptures for Ava to track down. I made sure to select artworks that I knew would be currently on display at SFMOMA and that would be of interest to Ava. I also made sure that they were all located within relatively close proximity to each other within the museum. Visiting museums and galleries with small children always takes much longer than expected and I knew that we may have run out of time to finish the treasure hunt had I selected artworks spread out over the four floors of the museum. Had that happened, I know that Ava would have been quite upset.

Habitot Children's Museum

Several times a week I walk past an inconspicuous place in Downtown Berkely called Habitot Children's Museum. I always think to myself "I should really go see what that is one day" but for months I've never gotten around to it. Well, last Friday Ava had the day off preschool for President's Day weekend so we thought we'd go check it out. The girls had such a great time that I was kicking myself that we hadn't been before.

The word "Museum" in the title threw me off a little but in actual fact Habitot is more of a play, craft and activity centre for young children. I had half expected to see displays of stuffy old toys from yesteryear!

Habitot is divided into rooms and areas dedicated to one theme each. The first such area we visited had a space theme. A space shuttle full of buttons, knobs, meters, gauges and steering wheels awaits eager young space cadets. Mission control is set up nearby with yet more buttons and knobs and even a means of communicating with the astronauts travelling through space in the rocket - good old hollow pipe! To top it off astronaut uniforms and helmets are provided to make it all a little more realistic.
Ava and Lola loved playing astronaut. Ava loved dressing up and pretending. Lola loved pressing buttons!

Two little astronauts

Commander Ava in space

Mission control

Commander Ava in the cockpit

Time for another space mission

Commander Lola.
She really was enjoying herself, she just really didn't want to pose for a photo!

Getting ready for take off

So many controls

What does this button do?

Mission Control and the Space Shuttle

The next play area we moved on to was the face painting station.

Anyone who knows Ava will be familiar with her obsession with face painting and dressing up. If she had things her way, Ava would be painted like a butterfly/fairy/unicorn/pegasus/rainbow every day of the week!

The face painting station is set up for children to paint their own faces - and their mummy's face too if she sits still long enough! Face painting crayons, activated by being dipped into a wet sponge, are set up in front of well lit mirrors with child size chairs. Ava painted her face with one of  her favourite things - love hearts. She also painted love hearts on my cheeks and Lola got one too.   

Ava at the face painting station

Sweet little hearts

Moving past the face painting and wooden train tables (no photos of that one) we found our selves in a little grocery store. Little shopping trolleys and baskets greet little shoppers ready to "purchase" their fruit, vegetables and baked goods. The shopping experience is complete with a little checkout and cafe area. The plastic fruit, vegetables and breads are quite realistic looking; enough so to convince little shoppers that it really is food. I'm sure that Lola wasn't the only one there trying to eat plastic bread! 

 

A little grocery shopping

Lola's favourite room in all of Habitot was the water room. Here she and Ava splashed about washing baby dolls, floating boats and rubber duckies, and played with water wheels as you can see below. 

They may be wearing plastic aprons in the photo below but trust me; Lola was absolutely saturated by the time we left this room! Tripping over and falling belly first into a tray of water didn't help! Next time I must remember to take a change of socks and shoes as well as a change of clothes. She was soaked all the way through and had to go barefoot for the rest of time at Habitot.   

Ava and Lola in the water room

The last room in Habitot (other than the toy lending library) is the wind tunnel. This room features two large fans at the end of a corridor and big power buttons for kids to press. Little red petal like hearts float around the room on the wind currents created by the fans. Children scoop up the hearts in baskets and toss them into the air to be blown around again. It's a noisy, fun room but quite tranquil and soothing at the same time. That sounds like a contradiction of terms but the floating red hearts and the cloud painted walls really are quite soothing - unless of course you're trying to take a good photo to capture the moment!

Lola in the wind room

For those feeling creative, an art room is set up with finger painting, craft and clay modelling stations. Children can paint on paper or add to a group painting on large white board wall. Usually Ava is not one to pass up a chance to paint or make artistic creations however on this occasion there were so many other exciting things to do that Ava wasn't all that interested in this particular room. I'm sure she will give it a go next time. Lola had a little go at painting however she is going through a stage in which she doesn't like having dirty hands (I'm sure it won't last long!) so finger painting was out of the question. She also likes to copy her big sister, so Ava not being interested in the art room meant that Lola wasn't particularly interested! We did manage to make a few glittery hand prints though before heading straight to the sink to clean Lola's hands - her favourite part of this room. She loves cleaning her hands at the moment.

The Habitot experience is rounded out with a climbing area, dining area (perfect for birthday parties), a gift shop full of fun, educational toys and a weekly class schedule (think music, art, cooking and science). On Fridays child sized slices of pizza is delivered from nearby Papa John's. This was a huge hit with the girls.

Ava at Habitot

The girls had such a great time at Habitot that we decided to purchase an annual membership. We can now visit Habitot any time we like. Hooray! Our membership also provides reciprocal benefits at other Association of Children's Museums members around the country. This will help cross a few more off the check list. Chabot Space and Science Center, Bay Area Discovery Museum, Children's Creativity Museum, Museum of Children's Art and Lawrence Hall of Science here we come...