Kandinsky Artist Basket

I was really inspired when I saw (the other :) Montessori Mama post a few weeks ago about artist baskets. Her blog is wonderful & the she's the *real* M mama - I only discovered her site after I had already named my blog! Anyhow, when I came across this blog (as mentioned in an earlier post, it's from The World according to Me) I got inspired to kick off with a Kandinsky basket! Hug has a great abstract-y style all of his own and we have casually been looking at the abstract artists throughout this year. 

So, here's what I put together: 

+ A set of Art Cards with a stand 

+ A CD of classical music, including Wagner's Lohengrin (Kandinsky was said to have devoted his life to art after hearing this!)

+ A felt rainbow (because his painting are so colourful)

+ A little wooden man

+ A tiny paintbrush (I snapped off the length of the smallest one we had - it's so cute!)

+ A map of Russia (Kandinsky was born in Moscow)

+ And a paper Russian flag

+ I also made a few blocked pages for us to do our own Kandinsky-inspired artworks

My rainbow! Oh, it's so freehand but I love it's organic-ness :) I'm trying to actually *make* the things I'm dreaming of in my head (as opposed to being a perfectionist - which I generally am) & let go of it having to be just right & embrace the uniqueness of things done spontaneously.

The art cards. There are 14 of these spanning his life's work. 

I decided to add all of these footnotes to the cards even though it's more than we'll probably be looking at at the moment - it just gives us a lot of possibilities for extensions later on - sorting the works on a timeline / Discussing mediums / Comparing the size of different works /Geographical research of the galleries etc. 

Anyway, I have been working on this for a few days and was really excited about it... and then I presented it. Hmmm.... Now, I am always nervous about giving Montessori-style presentations. All that precision is scary! But I had the great notes from the other Montessori Mama so that was a good place to start... Anyway, it was a flop! Actually & in reality I just chose a terrible time to present it - when we were all a bit stir crazy from being stuck inside with the rain & Lovely had refused to have a day sleep. What was I thinking? The boys were distracted & I eventually put it away.

But, today is another day & Lovely saw me photographing it when he got up from his nap & was very excited! He immediately made the rainbow ( I had been going to stitch it together but am so glad I didn't), he put the CD on, and then went through the artworks painting them with his little man and brush. Ahhh, sweeetness for a Mama's soul :)

Here he is with the one card that features a photo of his Dada T carrying him as a baby & looking at a Kandinsky at the Pompidou in Paris - an extra special momento!

So now i'm looking forward to Hug going through it over the weekend & creating our own masterpieces.

And, eventually, I  want to get organised and upload these files to box.net to share them with anyone who might be interested :)