Trip to London - walk to the Design Museum....

More pictures from the walk to the Design Museum...

Trip to London - the walk to the Design Museum

Some more of the sights and we walked and discovered streets. I hadn't ever been to this bit of london before. The Circle, Queen Eliabeth Street, Bemondsey was fantastic to see. Thats blue, Those shapes, that horse sculpture. WOW! Called The Dray Horse by Shirley Pace,it was unveiled 1987.

Trip to London - a walk to the Design Museum

These are some of the sights on the way to the Design Museum. Tube to Tower Bridge from kings Cross and then a walk into Londons old warhouses and the start of the Docklands. Some beautiful buildings turned into swanky flats... and yes, I would give my eye teeth to live in one of them and be able to see the sight of the Thames in the morning!

The Science Museum - Victorian architecture at its best

This is a sight that always impresses nme - exuberant Victiorian architecture at its most stylistic best. What a simplefantastic building. A cathedral to the Natural Sciences....The Natural History Museum.

The Science Museum - a mini trip and dodecahedron's - I think....

Walking over the glass bridge at the Science Museum and looking down....


After the Design Museum I had the chance with my son to fit in a mini visit to the The Science Museum. Its one of my son's favourite places. Even at 14, he still gets excited about seeing things that have engineering at the heart of them and just floors and floor of techy thingummies.I love seeing the rockets - just thes cale of them always amazes me. And I love the Victorian engineering on show. When we went there was one of the big pumps working and that was magical. Such a sight and sound.

I found these fantastic shapes in a case. If we had had more time I would have read about them. Instead it was a fleeting piccy taken and onto the next thing. We actually only had about 45 minutes there, so time was very tight. I just loved these mathematical shapes though. Loved looking at the shapes and the structure made and the patterns formed. Maths and art. Fab.

Paper Princes and Princesses - Stonehill School Art Club

Here are the one arm moving Princes and Princessess that the children at Stonehill School Art Club made with me this week. With only a couple of days to go for the Royal Wedding I knew the children would love to do something to do with it. When they were finished it was funny and lovely to see the children getting their figures to wave royally at each other!

Trip to London - a grey phone box

On a recent trip to the Design Museum I went past this - a grey phone box next to the Tower of London.I thought it was suitably grey and understated.

Letchworth tree shadow - Easter 2011

This was just a walk home on a sunny Easter Saturday and a moment oflight caught on my phone. This shadow was so beautiful - its seemed to sum up a classic sight of Letchworth - the Garden City, the architecture and the light.

Vintage Christmas wrapping paper and the Wot-Ever Scrap Store

I have always had a bit of a thing about vintage Christmas Wrapping paper. I suppose it's such a reminder of home - not that this was ever used in a time I can actually remember as I was so small. I can remember though that these types of papers were always in the Christmas box that lived in the loft. It was the box of Christmassy stuff. Old decorations and tree candle holders - yes, I can remember using real candles on a tree! UNBELIEVABLE!!! These pieces of wrapping paper I managed to get hold of just recently. I joined the "Wot-Ever Scrap Store" at Welwyn Garden City recently. It's a place where companies and individuals can donate unwanted materials from paper, plastic, bottle tops, there is a myriad of stuff there on two floors. Individuals can pay for a year's membership and then visit when they want and take what they need. Craft businesses use it, community groups etc as well as plenty of mums with young kids. The money raised is ploughed back into charity work that supports people with mental health difficulties. I tend to find I gather things up I haven't used and then deliver that and then gather up another range of things to take away. It's a wonderful little place and I am very happy to support it. To read more - click HERE to have a look at their website.

So these papers were a find I made there. I don't think I will do anything with them. Just keep them tucked away and enjoy looking at them occasionally and be reminded of a childhood.

Vintage Christmas Wrapping paper

So here are some more of the finds I made recently. The paper is so crinkly and fragic but it has he most marvellous quality to it. You can see how its been printed as the ink is uneven in places and there are small blobs of mistakes. I simply love them!!

A link to a new post on my schools blog - paper collages using rectalinear forms

Click HERE to see the paper collages from Stonehill School, March 2011

Paper collages - exploring rectalinear forms - Stonehill art Club, March 2011

This session was about the children making a paper collage by using pre-cut shapes like squares, strips and rectangles. I cut the shapes for the students to use and had them in little pots. The children selected the shapes and colour that they liked and then arranged their collages, some glued as they went, others arranged their shapes and then glued as the final stage. Below are two of my collages that I used show the childen the sort of image I wanted them to achieve - explaining how I had used symmetry, repetition and balance. I wanted them to have quite tight restrictions, to make images that had a strong sense of form and structure to them. I think they did well for kids aged 8 and up.

Paper collages - compositions with rectalinear forms - Stonehill School Art Club, March 2011