Art Appreciation
One of the artists we focused on this year was Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh is famous for his "The Starry Night" painting, and other artworks with strokes of bold colors and swirling patterns. There was a book about him that we wanted to borrow from the library, but unfortunately, it cannot be taken out because it was a parent's resource and I needed to put in a deposit of Dhs 400 ($108) if I remember correctly so that I can have my own library card.
I chanced upon the book again on our last trip to the library and so we spent some time appreciating Van Gogh's works once more.
The book was a pop-up, which was so engaging since his life and artworks kind of like "sprung up to life" as we opened each page. We could not wait what little surprises we'd get at each flip of the page.
There were pages on the Sunflower, wherein a big sunflower dial was on the page and we could just keep on spinning it while appreciating the special flower.
There were also other fun inserts in the book like the Mailman but of all of them, we thoroughly enjoyed decorating the Blue Bedroom.
The Blue Bedroom
The Blue Bedroom is like a peek into Van Gogh's world. This was a painting of his room from the Yellow House.
Van Gogh himself was very pleased with this painting:
‘When I saw my canvases again after my illness, what seemed to me the best was the bedroom.’
We found some cutouts on the inside back cover of the book and got intrigued by them. We realized they were the carton pieces that we can assemble into little furniture pieces.
Little Miss and Little Man started decorating the room, trying to copy the design as it was shown in the painting. I told them, they do not need to copy the fixtures as they were and they can use their creativity instead.
They exchanged the pieces several times, chose which painting should hang on the walls, etc.
It was like stepping into the painting itself.
Finally, they finished their artwork of the artwork. We took some mandatory photos, started to disassemble the carton pieces, and put them back in their rightful place for other future users to enjoy, too.