Beautiful Oops
This blog by our guest blogger Elisa from Inspiration Surrounds, Creativity Abounds
Beautiful Oops by Barney Saltzberg is a delightful, interactive and inspiring book for young children and adults alike. It creatively conveys the message that mistakes can be turned into something beautiful. It reminds readers that they can find something wonderful in imperfection. It encourages you to look for the possibilities (which are endless) and challenge yourself to find beauty in “mistakes”. Once you finish enjoying this book you will feel inspired to create with torn bits of paper, crumpled up rubbish and paper that has been smudged.
After reading the book for the first time, we (my four and three year old) got busy and created some masterpieces inspired by our splotches, smudges and pieces of rubbish.
Make a stick puppet the mistake way
Step 1
First things first, we needed some splotches. We experimented with different techniques to achieve this. We dipped our paintbrushes into some water and pretended we were Jackson Pollock as we sprayed paint onto our paper.
Step 2
We used different parts of our hands to make smudges.
Step 3
Once we had our “oops” pieces ready,we selected some materials to transform our “mistakes” into creations. The materials we used included: coloured feathers, googly eyes, pom poms, small shells, ribbon, buttons, flowers and pipe cleaners.
It was fascinating to hear each other’s ideas as we considered what we might transform our splotches into. The imagination is a beautiful thing.
My daughter combined a piece of rubbish (which made a body) with one of the splotches (the head) to make a fairy, complete with button headpiece, flower shoes and handbag!
My daughter also made a bird and vibrant mermaid (pictured below)
My son made “some friendly creatures”.
Together we made the creation below.
We turned some our characters into stick puppets and were able to give them personalities as we played with them.
Playing with our stick puppets meant that we were able to come up with all sorts of adventures for them.
My children now have a new appreciation for the endless possibilities and fun that can be had from a “mistake”. We look for ways in which we can creatively transform our artistic mistakes into something special.
