we recently got this fantastic book “lots of dots” by the fantastic craig frazier from the library. yes, I picked it out…the boys are dead set on books with trucks, cars, or trains these days.
thankfully, we all fell in love with the book. page by page its colorful, pop design illustrates the way that dots, little and small, are all around us.
I’m no child development specialist but it strikes me that by playing with perspective the book is encouraging creative, out of the box thinking. the kind of creative thinking that I think is vital, not just to creativity, but to any kind of problem-solving. so, when I was poking around in the basement and came across some dot stickers from a long-ago yard sale I was inspired to come up with a ‘lots of dots’ art activity for the boys.
it was absolutely one of those thrown-together-with-things-we-already-have projects, my favorite! we read the book and then I put out the stickers, nice pens (pilot brand, black, rolling ball, extra fine pens…the kind I always write with) and white paper. we all dove into it. these are two of my favorites from their creations (which both happen to use the stickers as balloons):
{two people with balloons by little J}
{crazy soccer man with balloons by C}
and, then they helped me work on mine..babies wearing sunglasses, which was hilarious for days! tee-hee. babies. with sunglasses!
unexpectedly, having the nice pens out sparked more precise drawing from C than he’s ever gotten into before. it was an important reminder for me. I believe strongly in the importance and power of quality supplies for kids. nobody, no matter how old, wants to try and work with supplies that don’t work very well. it’s discouraging. but, I forget sometimes to bring out the things, like my favorite writing pens, for the boys. just doesn’t occur to me. so, as a reminder of this important point I have these lovely drawings:
{an alien at the chocolate shop}
{an alien with two crying babies}
I’m telling you, we got into funny baby things. hilarious. I consider myself well and truly re-educated on the value of quality art supplies or at least the nice pens!
have you voted yet? thank you if you have! if not, there is still time..voting ends at 7pm on the east coast and 4pm on the west coast in the U.S.
updated to add: something really exciting happened! after posting this, the author and illustrator craig frazier got in touch me! he wanted me to know how touched he was that we were inspired by his book and told me that the whole book was inspired by working with some of his sketches and the same dot stickers that we used for our project! awesome serendipity, right? here is his post about his process. he also shared our project on his Facebook page! I was so flattered!
three cheers for the spread of beautiful inspiration.
Julie says
Oh my! Another creative way to use stickers!! I love it!
ahappystitch says
Yay! It’s tons of fun, let me know if you do a project with the stickers!