Arts & Craft Information & Tips

Knitting and crochet are two crafts that have definitely made a comeback. With everyone digging out their hooks and needles there is definitely no reason why you shouldn’t join the fun. While you might consider the crafts old fashioned you could not be more wrong. Crochet and knitting have become a trend even among younger people. If you are still not convinced below are a few reasons why you should crochet/knit.

1.It is a cheap hobby.

All you need is yarn, a crochet hook for crochet projects and two knitting needles for knitting projects. These materials are found in a variety of prices. If you are a beginner, it is best to use cheaper yarn until you decide on whether or not to continue with the craft.

2.Make your own clothes.

If you have ever found a knitted/crocheted garment you liked but couldn’t afford at a store, knitting and crochet might just be the thing for you. Using the yarn of your choice, you can make the same garment in the color or fabric you want and make any adjustments you see fit at a cheaper price.

3.Make your own gifts.

Knit and crochet gifts are not only cheaper but also fun to make. On top of that handmade gifts take more effort to make making them even more special. You can make a number of things from baby clothes to accessories for friends and family. 

4.It is easy to learn.

With many free video tutorials, crocheting and knitting have become easy to learn. They are also fast skills to learn. All you need are a few classes and in no time, you will be knitting or crocheting like a pro.

5.Portable projects.

Crochet projects are easy to carry around. You can crochet anywhere from a restaurant or at a bus stop making it very convenient when you want to finish a project quickly.

6.Make money.

Crocheting can be a good way to earn a living. There are a umber of ways to do this. The most obvious is to sell handmade clothes and accessories. You can also sell your own patterns or make video tutorials.

7.Express your creativity.

Crochet is a great way to create art. With an endless array of hook sizes, yarns and patterns to choose from there is no limit to what you can do.

8.Find a new community.

Once you start crocheting/knitting you can join online or offline groups created by others who enjoy the craft just as much as you. This gives you a sense of belonging while pushing you to become better. They are also a great way to come up with new ideas and learn patterns.

9.Relieve stress.

Crocheting/knitting is a very soothing craft. Being able to finish a craft also gives you a sense of pride and boosts confidence.

10.Mental exercise. 

Studies have shown that crochet/knit is a great way to exercise your brain. It has also been shown to help children with analyzing.

The above are just a few of the reasons to crochet/knit. With so many videos and books supporting the crafts, there has never been a better time to learn. Try starting with small beginner friendly projects and see where you go from there.

As famously stated by the all-time genius, Leonardo da Vinci, there is no art where the spirit does not work with the hand. Hand on wall painting is an exciting art concept that is convenient for both kids and adults alike. This art is beneficial in so many ways. In addition to being so much fun, it improves the coordination between your hands and eyes.

In this type of art, the canvases are walls, ensuring that the memories never fade away. Your kids can refer to this work when they become adults, igniting memories of their warm and loving childhood.

Materials needed

1. Hands (lol)
2. Paints
3. Water
4. Apron
5. Marker/ Paper tape
6. Soap

Steps

1. Mix the paint

Allow your kids to mix the paint with water and form different secondary colors from various mixtures. The paint should have a high consistency (a little bit thick). Choose colors that offer a sharp contrast to the color of the wall.

2. Dip your hands in the paint

Now, allow your kids to dip their hands into the paint and leave it for about 20 seconds. Remember, this art is not for kids alone. Dip your hands in it. Don’t miss out on the fun!

3. Place your hands on the wall

Now, place the palm of your hands on the wall for 30- 60 seconds. This is an ample amount of time to adore the smiles on your kids’ faces mixed with a bit of impatience as they anticipate the removal of their hands.

4. Label the hands

Label each hand with a marker or paper tape glued under the fingers. You won’t want the headache that springs from an argument of whose hand is who’s.

5. Wash the hands

Wash your hands properly to remove all the paint from each finger and nails. Use paints that can be washed off the hands easily to avoid stories that touch.

Conclusion

Yes! So here we are! Your kids would have learned so much about color combinations and the beauty of art. Watch as they still marvel and laugh over the painting years later! I’m sure you don’t want to miss out on this!

Sometimes, what your kids need is a touch of nature to help them connect with the uncharted waters in their ocean of creativity. Going for a Nature walk could be beneficial for your kids in many different aspects, but did you know that mother nature has always been eager to give them a gift for their next art and craft project? I bet you didn’t! The gift? Some little Leaf Men!

Leaves look good on trees and make trees what they are. With the leaves given to you by mother nature, you and your kids could plan the next family reunion between leaves and the trunks on which they once grew – papers. So what’s this epic reunion project all about? The answer? Leaf Printing!

Leaf printing is a fun and easy craft for kids of all ages. It is a very flexible type of art where you can form shapes, images, make a scrapbook, enhance gift wraps, cards, other papercrafts, etc. Would you like to know how to make awesome leaf prints? Read on!

Materials Required

• Leaves in different sizes and shapes
• Watercolors
• Paint Brush

How to Make Leaf Prints

1. Hunting for the leaves

Here, you need to collect a range of leaves with different sizes and shapes. Also, the leaves should have prominent venations. Let your kids do the leaf hunting and allow them to explore! Screen out the leaves they bring. The leaves should not be too dry lest it breaks when stretched out on paper.

2. Selecting the paper

Use white paper or colored paper sheets. Divide the sheets into halves or quarters or smaller boxes depending on the size of the leaves. Now, choose the color you want to paint each leaf with – be sure to use a plethora of colors!

3. Applying the color

Now it’s time to apply the color to the surface of the leaves. After applying a generous layer of color (not too thick or thin), lay each leaf face down on the paper sheets carefully. You may paint different parts of a leaf with different colors.

4. Leaf Printing

Be careful not to move the leaf after laying the painted surface down on the paper, or else they’ll smudge and smear. Push down the leaves applying an even pressure to make a clear print. A single leaf can be used many times by repainting it or washing the previous paint off. Smaller kids may need some help here, or better still, just let them do it how they want. A smudged leaf print could be beautiful too!

5. Adore the beauty!

Carefully remove the leaves and set aside the leaf prints to dry. After they dry, let your kids adore their work, and don’t forget to give them that pat on their backs. In the end, you’ve all made a connection of sorts with nature. Feels nice, eh?

Joseph Boyce is a German artist and activist, one of the main theorists of postmodernism. He advocated the expansion of the traditional concept of art: the creative process was to encompass all spheres of human activity, blurring the boundary between art and life. Boyce referred to his work as “anthropological art” and claimed that “every person is an artist”.

From childhood, Joseph Boyce dreamed of becoming a doctor. He enthusiastically studied works in biology, zoology, as well as art and philosophy. Therefore, when the National Socialist Party came to power in Germany, the boy painfully experienced the burning of his so beloved books in the schoolyard and saved Karl Linnaeus from the fire. He forcibly enters Hitler’s youth, escapes once with a circus, where he cares for animals, and becomes a Luftwaffe pilot during the war. Such is the biography of Joseph Boyce before the miraculous metamorphosis that occurred to him in March 1944, when a Soviet fighter downed his plane over Crimea.

According to Boyce himself, he was rescued by nomadic Tatars who smeared his body with grease and wrapped it in felt to warm it, and when he woke up a few days later, he tasted the honey in his mouth that fed him. Whether or not that story is real doesn’t matter. Boyce creates personal mythology and thus legitimizes himself as an artist, cleansing himself from previous experience. At that crucial moment, Joseph made the decision to heal humanity with a “brush” in his hand. It undergoes the ceremony of initiation, rebirth, after which artist Boyce is born from the cocoon.

Medicinal properties of organic materials

After the war, Boyce turned to sculpture in search of new forms of art. He may not have chosen this type of art by chance, because sculpture is basically a pagan idol, a worshiped totem, a medium that conveys ideas.

It uses unconventional fragrance-specific materials, organically, associatively warm, which saved it: felt, grease, honey. The artist conceptualizes the special properties of matter. For example, animal fat is a very tricky carving raw material that can only be poured or molded at a certain temperature – a metaphor for the smoothness and caution with which changes in society should occur. Felt has thermal and sound insulation properties. Boyce uses them in the Felt Suit to signify his function of preserving not only physical warmth but also spiritual warmth.

The work “Homogeneous Infiltration for the Piano” is the artist’s reference to children who, due to their pregnant mothers taking talmidol, had upper limb mutations. Here is a felt in the felt because it is music in potential, because there is no one to play it. The Red Cross here is a symbol of both the cure and the crucifixion found in many of the works of the healer. As an avant-garde artist, Boyce develops his own artistic language as well as manifests and theorizes. Therefore, you can always explain what this or that piece is about.

“Homogeneous infiltration for the piano”

To understand the philosophy of surrealism, we need to keep ourselves on the philosophy of the unconscious, i.e. on the ideas of Sigmund Freud regarding art.

Andre Breton believed that surrealism would not only unite art and literature, but, as stated in the first Surrealism Manifesto, “solve all the major problems of life”. This will affect all aspects of existence and introduce social and psychological changes in society. This concept was based on the ideas of Sigmund Freud, who adjusted Breton to his needs. He believed that Freud, by chance, rediscovered the powerful power of dreams and imagination, hidden under a layer of rationalistic views of life that he ruled at that time.

Sigmund Freud’s contribution was to describe and define the subconscious as a true phenomenon that determines human behavior and thought. Breton translated this understanding into the methodology of art and literature, based on sub consciousness and imagination, which he felt was suppressed by rationalism, civilization and progress.

Adoption by surrealists of the first Freudian situation (the absence of a fundamental difference between healthy and mental patients) led to the recognition of madness as the most favorable conditions for surrealistic artistic creativity, due to the complete lack of control of the mind in this state. In practice, this has led to a large number of surrealistic works, which cannot be distinguished from pictures made by psychiatric hospitals in the process of their treatment with work. Using the analogy Freud made between dreams and art, surrealists have very widely applied psychoanalysis methods to their artistic work.

They applied such aspects of psychoanalysis to art, as Freud never mentioned in relation to artistic creations. Freud found that the dreams are made up of visual images (situations), formed from a mixture of immediate “yesterday’s” impressions and other experiences experienced in reality. Images, thoughts, dark desires and memories permeate dreams, Freud claims, “human sub consciousness, where their consciousness has been suppressed and where they are continuously shaped as unconscious complexes.” It has been scientifically established (and in Freud’s time) that the occurrence of dreams is the result of poorer work (incomplete exclusion) during the sleep of individual brain centers. It was the world of Freud’s dreams, devoid of logic and meaning, distorted and impoverished, reproducing certain random elements of reality from which surrealists made the object of their art. Trying to turn into “over” realism, Surrealists are practically “buried in the jungle of sub consciousness”, created similar and unexplainable works that rose to the point of a surrealist artistic creation.

The very concepts of Surrealists have received strong support from psychoanalysis and other Freudian discoveries. Both before and in front of others received tough confirmation of the correctness of their aspirations. They could not fail to notice that the “random” methods of early surrealism (for example, glaze) corresponded to the Freudian “free association” method used in the study of the inner world of man. When later in the art of Dali and other artists the principle of illusionist “photographing of the unconscious” is confirmed, it is impossible not to recall that psychoanalysis developed the technique of “documentary reconstruction” of dreams. In addition, psychoanalysis devoted the greatest attention to those states of the soul, which, above all, are also interested in surrealists (sleep, mental disorders, child mentality, primitive psyche, exempt restrictions and the prohibition of civilization). It is therefore impossible to recognize the parallel interests, views, methods and conclusions of Surrealism and Freudianism.