Introduction to this Stone Soup Art Activity This picture is from New Zealand. Brett Penman, age 10, shows us what it feels like to play soccer when the ball is moving fast and both teams are on the run. To get across the tension, speed, and emotional feelings of being on the field playing a hard game, Brett depicts the players as big, bold, and wild. The boldness of the picture matches the boldness of the game. Project: An Exciting Moment Most pictures of sports show athletes from the point of view of the spectators—the people standing outside watching. For a change, make a picture, like this soccer picture, that shows what it feels like to be involved in an athletic activity at an exciting and challenging moment. In baseball, this moment might be when you jump up to catch a fly ball; in jumprope you are doing doubles and the count is 85; in hopscotch you are on one foot reaching for a rock that is almost too far away and you are doing everything you can to keep your balance. When making your picture, make strong shapes, show bodies stretched and distorted in unusual ways. Don’t be afraid to show the world upside down from the point of view of a person who has fallen down and is winded or from the viewpoint of a person turning cartwheels. Make your picture as exciting as the sports event you are depicting. From the September/October 1985 issue of Stone Soup Soccer game, by Brett Penman, 10, New Zealand
Art activity
Art Activity: Making pictures of your community, with ‘Local Houses’, by Khaled Abdulaziz Ateeg, 12
Introduction to this Stone Soup Art Activity This city in Yemen, Saana, is similar in architecture with the painting, below, of a town in Saudi Arabia. This photograph is of Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. The buildings are made of brick or mud brick with white decorations made of white paint. This architecture is similar to that depicted in the painting of Al Aflaj, Saudi Arabia made by Khaled Abdulaziz Ateeg, 12. Khaled’s painting was made in the 1970s. Judging by images that I find online I think that this is not what the Al Aflaj looks like today. In the painting, the town is still a city of traditional buildings. They will have been smaller than the ones you see in the photograph of Sanaa. And they will have been of adobe–of mud bricks. What is remarkable about Khaled’s painting is that the architectural style is clear–and at the same time he has had the courage of an artist to present the town as richly colored. Realistic. But also imaginative. Project: Make pictures of the part of town where you live, and pictures of the part of town where you shop. Include in each drawing the important details that make your community recognizably unique. Some of these details are the different shapes of the buildings, the spaces between the buildings, and the patterns the windows make. Also important might be the type and placement of trees and gardens, telephone poles, street signs, advertisements, traffic lights, street lamps and parked cars. Notice in the drawing of Al Aflaj the distinct shape of the minaret tower. If your town has a church or other distinctively shaped building or landmark you might want to include it in your drawing. You don’t have to finish your work in one day. In fact, you probably can’t. So take your time to make a picture you can be very proud of. Like Khaled, allow yourself to be free of the constraints of your community’s real colors. Saudi Arabia is a very hot place. If Aflaj had painted the buildings their authentic brown color the image would have looked drab. What the color achieves is giving the place a sense of brightness–and a desert town is bright even if it is brown. The colors also make the town look welcoming which a brown town might not have seemed. In other words, Khaled used color that wasn’t really there to convey impressions and feelings that he felt looking at his town. As you think of your own town, think of how you might change how it actually looks to get at a deeper feeling about how it looks or feels to you, that is then conveyed to the people looking at your picture. From the January/February 1985 issue of Stone Soup Local Houses, by Khaled Abdulaziz Ateeg, 12, Saudi Arabia
Art Activity: expressing and recording feelings, with ‘Spring’, by Myra Nicolaou, 8
Introduction to this Stone Soup Art Activity In a way, the new year really starts with spring. Spring is the time for planting the garden and cleaning house. It is the time when trees get new leaves and when you can play outdoors well into the evening. It is the season when cycles begin again. Plants come out of dormancy, fruit trees flower, butterflies and bees are out in force, and the fruits for later in summer begin growing. It is is a time of promise. This picture of spring is a painting by a seven-year-old from the island of Cyprus. Look at this picture. The tree, flowers, sheep, and vivid colors all crowded together recreate one of those important spring feelings—the feeling of bright fresh air, wonderful days bursting with new life. I’ve chosen this image by a young child because, in its exuberance, it has many aspects of abstract art. This is Spring as a riot of color. As a feeling of bursting. As energy. Project: Make a Picture That Records a Personal Feeling of Spring Close your eyes and make yourself feel the way you do on a warm spring day. When you have this feeling in mind, use your imagination to find an image out of your own life that matches this feeling. Maybe in your imagination you see a ball game, or you and your family working together in the garden, or birds in the branches of a tree, or something you saw in a park. Perhaps, like Myra, who painted this picture, your sense of spring is a fruit tree in bloom with bees and butterflies flying about. Your goal is to bring to life the smell and feeling of Spring using images out of your imagination that are based on things you have seen with your own eyes in the real world. Take from the style you find in this picture by a young a child the confidence of the young child — which is the confidence of the artist. Be bold. Take risks. Embrace color. From the May/June 1985 issue of Stone Soup Spring, by Myra Nicolaou, 8, Cyprus
