Fai's

A green elf in its treehouse. Note the blue mushroom.

Two ogres- one big, another small. The big ogre has 4 pets - the big flying pet on the right is a gargoyle and the smaller one on a mountaintop on the left is a harpy

Fai's fruits and vegetables

More plasticine creations

It was one of those days when we had to wait for DH to pick us up.
The boys got for themselves a few boxes of plasticine in an assortment of colours.
While I had a quick snack, the boys entertained themselves with their works of art.

Stick Man

Thomas the Train

In a vegetable farm

Warrior.
This was pasted on the car's steering wheel.

Plasticine creations

Han's

Fai's creatures

Henna @ home

Machika came with bag full of inai.

She was so captivated by this ancient body art since having her hands decorated at Batu Caves, she has big plans for henna art in Japan.

Using a paintbrush

Only JY would think of tranfering the paste and using a piping bag and piping tip instead.

Beautifully decorated hand and foot.

Tioman inspired Sketches

Pirate ships by Fai

Snorkeling by Fai

Treasure map on Skull Island by Fai

Money by Han

Bionicle May2011

Fai is into drawing robots now - Bionicles in particular. He intends to teach me how to draw one of them.

A winged Bionicle

National Art Gallery 3May2011

A beautiful kolam greeted us as we stepped foot into the National Art Gallery.

We walked up to the 3rd floor using a spiral walkway.

Strolled passed an interesting art piece made entirely out of brushes - the type used to scrub toilets

Mother and Child viewing photos of mothers and their children.

I was there with a group of homeschoolers. This trip was organised by one of them and we had the curator leading the way.

Fai viewing the art on display

One of my favourites.
Mare and foal made out of pieces of metal welded together. I would have preferred an animal native to Malaysia - kerbau and anak, perhaps?

Photo composition of victims of war.

Fai and Han wanted me to read out the caption written under each photo.

This piece of art looked half-done. I couldn't quite get it but Fai spent quite some time examining it.

Drawing time!

The kids were told to draw a 'mom and me' portrait

Ean drew a sword and entitled his drawing 'Weapon'

Fai drawing out his Mother dragon and two baby dragons.

The curator was fascinated with his drawing. He got a lot of attention that day.

He was not satisfied with his drawing and didn't want to hand up an incomplete piece when asked to submit his.

Fai asked for more time.

Han drew a knight.

JY drew a Mad Hatter Mummy and her mummy forgot to take a photo of it. Never mind JY says, it will be displayed for public viewing soon.

The curator told us that their drawings will be displayed during the grand opening on 10thMay. Fai was very excited about this and asked the curator what floor it would be on.

Running down to the foyer.

We were given notebooks as a parting gift.

Bionicle 24thApril2011

I like his attention to details.

Art by Fai and Han April2011

After sorting the boys' growing pile of drawing pads and art blocks, I came across a few interesting pieces.

'Dragons after a tank' by Fai

'Monster with eggs'(left) and 'Bones'(Right) by Han

'Raptor' by Han

'Knight with weapons' by Han .

The knight is holding a whip and a sword with a mace hanging on the belt.

'Knight' by Fai

Fai's skeleton now has ulna and radius - two bones of the forearms.

This skeleton has ulna, radius, tibia and fibula - the two bones below the kneecaps

Fai says he has difficulty drawing the rib cage

'Dinosaur skeleton' by Fai

Noticing how much he loves to draw bones, books on skeletons are now borrowed regularly from the library.

Batik Factory @Penang 9April2011

Observing artists at work in the batik factory.

One was drawing onto the cloth with a pencil, a few were painting and another was hand stamping.

Step 1: Dip stamper with desired pattern into molten wax. Leave the stamper in the wax for a few seconds. Shake off excess wax.Step 2: Press down the stamper onto a white cloth. Starting from the bottom left hand side of the cloth, moving upwards. Repeat both steps. The wax dried almost instantly. This man worked with such precision, using just his fist for measurement. JY examining the fine details.Finished product.

The dye was still wet and the boys were warned not to touch. Lots of ways to tie the sarong.

Human Anatomy 7April2011

Fai wanted to know what the the human heart and stomach looked like. After digging through our bookshelf, this was the only book I had with a drawing of human parts.

This book is very well-used with its pages held together by tape. When Fai and Han were younger, they enjoyed looking through non-fiction books and encyclopedias instead of story books.

Fai looked intently at the illustration and began to draw.....

Version 1

brain, trachea, lungs, stomach and intestines

Version 2

Now the drawing is more detailed from the windpipe to the branching tubes in the lungs, heart with blood vessels leading into hands, hair on the head and an accurately shaped stomach and lastly small and large intestines.

Fai got fed-up with human anatomy and decided that his creatures made better subjects.

Look at his creature. Try figuring out which of its body parts is its eyeball, stomach, lungs and heart.

We went to the PJ Community library later that day to browse for more pictures and we managed to find a good one but it was a red spot book. Fai snapped a few photos of the illustrations that he liked for future reference.

Unschooling my kids had enabled me to address their queries and interests immediately. It is times like these that makes being a stay- at-home-mom worthwhile.