ART EXPLORATION #7 - Grocery Shopping with a twist

Desserts & Fruits  

My family enjoys the variety of foods from different cultures and are open to trying to new, authentic foods. As a family, we enjoy the food of different cultures. Indian, Thai, Chinese, Western, Mexican, Japanese, Korean, Carribean are amongst the variety of foods that my family has enjoyed together at restaurants. However, one thing that remains the same for my family are their preference for desserts. My grandparents would only settle for fruits after a meal. They have this traditional Chinese cultural mentality. I never really understood growing up as a child. Today, the adult "me" respects this culture, and after reflection, I find these cultural differences pretty neat. 

Fruits come in all forms of intense beautiful colours and shapes. Grocery shopping for fruits always puts a smile on my face. Having the fruits layed across the table, we can see the boldness of each fruit and the art of having them contrast one another. 

After a meal, the western culture has been accustomed to having desserts, usually a sweet enlightening treat. 

Home-Made Pastry 

Mom's Fruit bowl 

Mom's art of assembling fruits

Grapes, mangoes, bananas, lemons, pears, strawberries, kiwi, star-fruit, honey-dew melons, cantaloupes, limes, apples, oranges,blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, wild-berries. 

In the Chinese culture, raw or sliced fruits are often our traditional dessert. At traditional Chinese restaurants, fruits are often served at the end of meals. Even in my home, fruits are the typical after-meal dessert by my mother.

Being raised in a westernized society though, I have develop a love from western desserts such as cake, pastries. This lifestyle of the after-meal sweet treat has been around since I was born. However, only until recently, have I been specifically been interested in baking and spending more time in being creative and having fun with preparing meals. The art of baking goods or slicing fruits to decorate a dessert can become an activity. Desserts with fruits. 

My most favourite three fruits: 

Blueberries

Kiwi Fruit

Strawberry

In comparing and contrasting the nature of fruits, I was inspired to create my own desserts with fruit:

Dessert with a Twist

ART EXPLORATION #6 - Representing My Identity and the World Around Me

scissors

Children learn a great deal about identity through reflecting on photographs of family, friends, and themselves. They develop a sense of whom they are through learning to look and internalizing what they find pleasing. They discover their interests and develop a sense of self through exploration of colours, images and while interacting with people. Inspired by Henri Matisse's painting with scissor project, I created an art activity while I babysat some children over the weekend:

 collaging with scissors. 


Things you will need & instructions:

Silhouette 

• large sheet of paper (child-size to lay on)
• have the child lay on the piece of paper and outline the child's body
• scissors
• children can cut out the silhouette of themselves
• photographs of family, friends and children
• have the children cut out the images and heads of their favourite family members, friends and themselves
• on the silhouette cutout of themselves, create a collage from the cutouts of the photographs

Steps to collaging with scissors.


1. Take a mix of photographs with a Polaroid and Digital camera
2. Play with the zoom and angles of the photos while snapping these photos.
3. Collect and snap some new photographs of family, friends and children.
4. Have the children examine the photos , reflect and recognize the faces 
5. Cutout their favourite photographs of themselves, family members and friends .
6. Create a collage with the photographs by piecing the collection of photographs on the silhouette of themselves, or on any surfaces.

ART EXPLORATION #4 - Looking for Patterns in Urban Setting: The City of Toronto

I was born and raised in Toronto, and have lived here all my life. Toronto being my hometown, I always thought I knew this city really well. This past week, I rose my awareness when I stroll around this city and realized that I've missed a lot of fine details about this city. 




nature in an urban city  Biking on the Woodbine beach trail, I captured a different perspective in viewing my surroundings today . I watched the blue sky slowly blend into rosy pink blotches of in the horizon as the sun set. I thought it was a beautiful view and decided to snap a photo of the view to capture it's beauty. I began angling myself left and right, trying to play with the lighting and open space. I loved seeing the glimpse of pink in the sky. After snapping several shots, I reviewed my photos and thought, "If only these trees weren't in the way, I'd have a perfect snapshot of the magnificent pink sky". 

spotted the patterns Afterwards, I came home and uploaded this photo on to my computer. I looked more closely into the photo and reflected that the trees created abstract lines.  They may have blocked the view of what I originally wanted to capture a picture of, however, the photos I resulted in taking gave me another outlook.  

abstract lines It was then I noticed the branches of the tree grew so abstractly. Each tree with branches springing in different angles here and there, so naturally. Nature really is a work of art.


Toronto has always been recognized as an urban setting, in which many people recognized as the second "new york". The busy streets, the streets lights that outline and brighten our whole city. But within this big city, in my very own neighbourhood in which I grew up in, patterns of all kinds occur at all scales. Toronto's urban setting are full of patterns.  

The view of a building with the little glimpse of light shining through each of it's room window is a beautiful pattern of our urban city.The streets lights that brighten up the outskirts of Toronto is another beautiful perspective of pattern of our city. 

Take a look at this photo I took from the view of Panorama and reflect for yourself!

Home Sweet Home town : Toronto city.