YOu Did it

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Color Your World

Lots of treasures
around your
home can be
used to make
fun art.

You don't have to be Rembrandt
to help your children learn to love art

Sharon Monello Borstein
Special to The AppleTree

en is the last time you
made an art project with
your children? Do you
avoid it, insisting, "I can't draw"?
Well, it's time to reconsider. Your
children don't expect you to be a fine
artist, and besides, the whole idea is
to have fun. Here are some easy
ways to enjoy art with your children:
fru
Painting is fun even for small
children. A great way to begin is
with tempera in the three primary cal-
1 ors of red, blue and yellow. Experi-
ment to see how every other color
can be made from the primaries. You
can buy blank newsprint to use, or
just paint on yesterday's newspaper.

Sharon Borstein is a Detroit

native who designs her own
ketubot. You can contact her on-line
at borstein@ix.netcom.com

Older children may want to try paint-
Enjoy good weather, nature and
ing something representational, but lit-
art with rubbings. You'll need crayons
tle ones will have fun just moving the .1 and bond paper. Find an object with
paint around with a brush or their fin-
an interesting texture, such as the
gers.
back of a leaf, tree bark, or the sur-
While the paint is out, you can
face of a brick. Lay the paper on top
also try printing. Cut an apple in half
of the object and rub the crayon over
around the equator and dip it in
paper to make an image. You also
paint. Press it onto the paper to make
can make this into a treasure hunt by
a print. It's also fun to use pears, or
seeing how many different textures
I try cutting a shape from a potato or
you can make, or by collecting rub-
sponge.
bings of a variety of leaf shapes. The
ul Collage is art and a great way
art you make can become interesting
to recycle. Gather old magazines,
when you put several textures on one
glue and construction paper. Cut or
page. Try using different colors and
tear pictures from the magazines and
overlapping images.
shapes from construction paper. Glue
Another way to bring art into
to another piece of construction
your lives is by visiting a local
paper. You can use a theme (such as
museum. Take a short trip the first
shapes or animals). Older children
time (for a 6 year old, about 1-1 /2
enjoy doing collages with words and
hours is plenty). Stop in front of any-
pictures. If you have glitter glue, but-
thing that catches your fancy. The
tons, feathers or the like to embellish
first time I took my son, we started
with, so much the better.
with the oldest paintings and

worked our way to the modern
ones. In the rooms with the biblical
themed paintings,•we sat and dis-
cussed the stories he knew and
saw: Adam and Eve, Noah and
the flood, Esther and Mordechai.
When we got to the more modern
works, I made a point of going by
the Picassos. Sam had been
despairing of how he drew people.
When he saw that Picasso's paint-
ings were in a museum and had
ladies with too many noses and
both eyes on one side of their
head, he felt more confident in his
own abilities.
1 Learn about some of the many
famous Jewish artists throughout histo-
ry — not just Chagall, but
Modigliani, Soutine, Pissarro and oth-
ers. A good place to start is the Ency-
clopedia Juclaica, or you can find a
number of good books on the sub-
ject. E

6/26
1998

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