Orla art

Orla is a prolific artist, aided recently by new paint pens for Christmas, and a ready supply of paper due to our big post-Christmas declutter.

Here they all are enjoying the new supplies. Orla is working on one of her more detailed works.


However, sometimes quantity seems to be the focus. Nevertheless, there's a lot of brainwork going on in the background.

For this one, Orla said:
"For you Mummy!"
I made the classic mistake of presuming what was in the picture.
"Oh, two people".
"No, it's not two people. It's me [points to the one with hair] and a statue!"

Of course.




Seconds later:
"The babies are out at the beach with their Mummy and Daddy. They are in one tent, which is this tent [the green outline]".



Followed closely by:

"The babies in a castle with their Mummy and Daddy".



"Splashes out of the blue water going up and down".



And then, intriguingly:

"You can think about what the green things are that are shooting out of the water. [Pause]. They are fishes. The babies are here caughting (sic) them! There's me, there's C [friend], there's M [friend - all while pointing to blank parts of the page]. We're caughting them and putting them in a fish bag".



And finally:

"Me inside a green bubble".



Orla was particularly pleased to find some little square pieces of paper in the sea of white A4.

So what's going on here? We could think about the brainwork behind the pictures in terms of schema theory. From a very young age, Orla has been an encloser, which developed further into the related enveloping. The subjects of the first three pictures are all enclosed (in a tent, a castle, and a non-specific boundary). The fish are inside a fish bag. And Orla is pictured in her imagination inside a green bubble. There's possible trajectory elements too, with the fishes leaping out of the water, and splashes of blue.

Putting on more of a socio-cultural lens, Orla draws what is relevant to her. Families, including babies. Friends. Fishing expeditions. Holiday time - children out with Mummy and Daddy.

I quite liked the final "green bubble" picture. A real work of the imagination!

Orla envelopes

Little things

Orla likes to gift us little things. A flower....





Or a leaf.




Sometimes the little things are carefully cut up pieces of paper.



Sometimes they have important things written or drawn on them.





Sometimes the pieces of paper go into a container of some kind - a backpack, box or bag.




On this day, Orla put her bits of paper into the transparent back pack and said "I'm SO ready for Playcentre!". (This was just before term started). She put her bag on top of mine.



Once at Playcentre, she handed out little bits of paper to some of her friends.

Disconnecting/separating, enveloping, and something else that I haven't quite grasped yet. The gifting aspect is important too.

Connections?

I wonder if Ewan is exploring connections....here he is lining up a series of blocks, then soon afterwards connecting trains together.

Line drawings

More horizontals and verticals from Orla - gifts of art for Mummy and Daddy.

I'm starting to see some core and radial in her art too (perhaps inspired by two of her slightly-older friends). At Playcentre last week she was drawing suns.

Ropes and lines

It's amazing what you notice when you look for it! Or perhaps, what you see when you hold up a particular lens.

After writing the post on Orla's schemas yesterday, I noticed her today pulling gleefully on the blinds, saying "Mummy why do ropes makes lines?"

The whole ropes/lines thing reminded me of my February observation. And of course, if you were interested in horizontals and verticals, then venetian blinds with vertical cords would be, well, interesting. Especially the effect of pulling on the vertical to make it longer.

Vertical and horizontal

This post is a personal record for me of Orla's developing schemas. I've been meaning to write it up for ages, but....yeah, you get that.... I keep having ideas about it, but then I lose them again. I hope that if I at least get this much recorded, I can come back to it sometime.

Anyway, in February I began thinking a bit more about graphic schema. I suspected that Orla was most interested in vertical lines, with a bit of horizontal action as well. One day I observed her at home while the big two were at school and Ewan was sleeping. [Comments in square brackets were made by me]. She started by drawing a horizontal line, saying "This is a shower for everyone". She continued: "This is for you and Ewie. I'm chopping it this way so it can be nice. I cutted this one for Ewie".



She noticed my interest:"You take the photo of my pieces of paper! Funny!"

























She continued: "I'm chopping them into pieces. Look Mummy here! It's a piece of paper for you". She hands it to me. "Here Mummy. It's got drawing on it". [It has too!]
















"Do a "O" Mum. Do a "O" for me. An "O" goes like this. " She draws, with circular motions.













"I'm cutting all of it" [All of it]. "Yeah, all of it". [Look at that. You're cutting all the way across] "Yup".

"Little pieces and big pieces and little pieces. I cutted a baby half. Ha! Funny."


























"It hasn't got drawing on it. This has. I'm not going to give Baby James to Playcentre. Because I'm not going to. I found Baby James. And Baby James was awake already and we said that I am awake. I am Baby James's Mummy, Mummy. You're a Grandma Mummy".

Baby James is a Playcentre doll that Orla had taken a shine to (and has subsequently formally adopted).

"It's got drawing on it. It's like a present. For somebody to wrap up".

Orla continues cutting and making lines, saying things like:

"You need to hold the scissors with finger and thumb, finger and thumb".

"It's a rope".

"I need more Mummy!"

"O is for Orla! I'm doing a O is for Orla!".

"A boat Mummy! I'm going to make a big boat. I'm cutting this off. But I"m not going to cut my dress".

"Here Mummy. It's a rope. I'm going to cut the lines. Now I know where I'm going I'm going in the line of a spaceship. Look Mummy it's another rope! Look, I made a triangle!".


I noticed at her next session at Playcentre that she was focused on cutting a piece of paper so that she (deliberately and repeatedly) had made a series of vertical lines.

Here's a selection of her paint art from term one this year - vertical lines predominate. (And thanks to big brother for assisting with the photos!).









































So....what does all this mean? Of course, I'm still unsure. Whether or not it is fully reflected in the episodes I've recorded here, I have noticed a strong interest in vertical (in particular) and horizontal lines. The interest in "O is for Orla" is self-explanatory - however I have noticed an increased awareness of letters since Aidan has been spelling and doing formal literacy work at the table. She will say things like "Mummy, I can spell e-i-o-x-c". She is aware that letters can be joined up to mean things, and that the joining up is called spelling - but there are as yet a few missing links in that literacy chain!

In the first story, perhaps there was an interest in separation (chopping) and enveloping (the gift reference). The O is also an enclosure.

Easter round up

On Good Friday we made chocolate easter buns to go with our bought spicy fruit hot cross buns. Easter Sunday was the big egg distribution day, which went down well as always!

Didn't get around to any easter craft until today, the first day of the school holidays. It was cold, so scrambled eggs for lunch sounded good - so how about blown and decorated eggs?

The blowing was reasonably difficult as I had tried to keep the holes small for aesthetic reasons. I made the holes progressively larger depending on who was finding it difficult. Orla made a specially large hole in hers after she had finished getting all the egg out.

Next, the eggs were washed and dried.

Here are the children hard at work dyeing, after having drawn on the eggs with beeswax crayons.













On the rack to dry....













And in their basket on display.















Meanwhile, Ewan still likes how things fit into things.

Contentment in containment

Ewan likes how things fit into things. Including himself!

















He likes things in boxes.















Shake it all about!



























And it's still there!













He also likes vehicles, and crawls around with toy cars, buses, trains and the like, sometimes making what sounds like brrrrrrrm! sounds.

He stands for a moment - he almost looks like he will take a step towards me - then giggles, crouches, and crawls into my arms.

He says "ca" (car) - different from his word for cat, and used when cars zoom down the street as we wait at bus stops, or as we walk up to the car before a journey.

Baby schema

People sometimes wonder how early a baby's schemas might be able to be identified. It seems to me that there are a number of scholarly ways to answer this question - depending first on how you define schema!

For Ewan right now, I notice how he bursts into giggles and becomes incredibly animated as he watches his big siblings race around the room. He exclaimed in delight as Orla threw wooden toys through the air to hit noisily against the glass of the cabinet. (My exclamations at this point were somewhat different). He jumped up and down in my arms as Orla burst open her train, scattering carriages and engines in all directions across the floor.

Trajectories, anyone? And a touch of the disconnect. Sound familiar?


And in other news, he really likes eggplant. And the cat. (But not together. Yet).

I King Castle!

More schema notes.

Orla is interested in how things are positioned with respect to one another. She likes to stand on something tall and sing "I King Castle! You dirty castle!" (that's not a typo!). At the pool she carefully stacked flutter boards on top of one another. At home she takes pleasure and satisfaction in constructing towers.

Round! Round! Round!

Two minutes after I had cleared off this table and wiped it down, I discovered this:








Circles and enclosed circles - (and little hands rubbing with glee!)



When Orla was at Playcentre yesterday, she did a painting of blue circle after blue circle after blue circle until the piece of paper was all blue. When I talked to her about it afterwards she nodded enthusiastically, saying "Round! Round! Round!" as she drew with her finger in the air.

More schema photos

Some more photos of Aidan and Orla's possible schema interests.





Aidan's leg art - classic enveloping, but.....it is "Two people lassoing two people" (connecting?). And "...and there's heaps of boats sailing. On one of them [the legs] there's only one boat. On one there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 boats". (Trajectories, transporting??).





Orla made this on the kitchen floor, thus demonstrating the difference between enveloping, and







enclosure.






What's enveloped here?







Trains!









And enveloping oneself.