I love, love, love all the creative inspiration the holes are providing! Besides doing the big paintings, like the one I posted about on Monday, Maia's been drawing up a storm on smaller paper with holes.
This drawing is double-sided and she said it's a birthday card for when Daphne turns one (still three months away -- I guess she's thinking ahead). The card is shown folded in the photo below.
Here's one with a triangular hole. She's done circles, triangles, squares, and amorphous shapes so far.
She's tracing her hands onto the paper on this one.
If you have kids Maia's age, you probably know that tape is one of the most loved art supplies around. Right?! It's not just Maia is it? Here she taped a second sheet of paper to the drawing she was working on and then taped the shape I had cut out of the first paper onto the second.
This is not the sort of thing most people would post on their blogs because it's not terribly attractive. You can't frame it and if you sent it to grandma, she'd say, "huh?" But I think it's incredibly creative!
The inside view.
Here are a couple with multiple holes...
And a monster mask.
Not only do I love how inspired Maia has been by the negative spaces, but she has spent hours over the past few days working happily on these drawings and paintings! If that's not enough to get you to try this with your children, I don't know what is!
And, if you haven't read the comments from Monday's post, here are some great ideas from Barbara Zaborowski, a teacher I interviewed a couple of years ago, who does this with her preschool students:
Have you tried making the hole off-center? Or making several small holes? Or a large circle and a small one? Or making the paper some random, flowing shape with a perfect square cut-out somewhere in it?The possibilities are endless
As you can see, I tried a couple of her suggestions (and intend to try the others). Also, MaryAnn Kohl gave these ideas on my Facebook page:
Try a crazy shaped hole that isn't even in the middle. Another idea is to glue some shape onto the paper, or glue a yarn piece on the paper. These are called "Challenges" and you can almost hear the child's mind clinking away snapping synapses as they work with it.
I think we have a lot of exploring left to do!
