Today has been a tricky day

Esther and Bea are full of cold

Neither of the girls have slept properly for a few days

And so nights have been disturbed for all of us

At 24 weeks pregnant

I am much slower through the day

If I have not banked enough sleep

Esther was keen to do some painting

And Bea enjoys a dabble

William was busy making Star Wars models

From his one box of ordinary big boy lego

But the stars aspect of star wars

Gave me an idea for an activity to try

We would do some art work

Painting and drawing

Based on one of my very favourite paintings

Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night

I found a copy of the painting to show the girls

And we talked about the colours and the swirls

And how we might make a picture like this of our own

We decided to begin with poster paint on tin foil

A process we have explored before

To make the foil easier to paint on

I wrapped it round some card

(A cut up cereal box)

Esther and I then chose the paints

And mixed the colours that we needed

That we did not have

My children love colour mixing

Often that can be an activity all on it’s own

Once we had the colours

We chose our tools

Brushes of varying shapes and sizes

And cotton buds

Things that we know make good spots and swirls

We all began by painting our backgrounds on to the foil

Before allowing our paint covered instruments

To pirouette across the page

Swirls and twirls like dancers

Ice skaters

Scraping against the shine of the foil

Creating a shimmering starry wintery scene

Esther chose to add more detail to her picture

With Sharpies

The pen created exploding stars

Made a wonderful effect on top of her painted background

After our foils were finished

We decided to try glitter card

An all together different painting experience

We needed much more paint on our brushes

And our actions had to be harder

More definite

It was not so easy to twirl and swirl

What we loved about this

Was that the glitter poked through

Every shape and colour

Was accentuated with sparkle

Perfect for a painting inspired by

Van Gogh’s Starry Night

Our last medium to try

Was coloured chalks

On black sugar paper

We could make definite shapes

And fine lines

We could also smudge and smear

Our colours across the page

Chalk drawings are always fun

And it is easy with chalk

To create a pretty effect

What a lovely afternoon we have had

Trying out different art processes and techniques

All inspired by stars

A Starry Night

Thank you Vincent Van Gogh