The Jumbo Book of Outdoor Art »

Irene Luxbacher is an artist and the author-illustrator of The Jumbo Book of Art, The Jumbo Book of Outdoor Art, the Starting Art series and Mattoo, Let's Play! She also illustrated The Imaginary Garden for Kids Can Press. She lives in Toronto.

Irene Luxbacher is an artist and the author-illustrator of The Jumbo Book of Art, The Jumbo Book of Outdoor Art, the Starting Art series and Mattoo, Let's Play! She also illustrated The Imaginary Garden for Kids Can Press. She lives in Toronto.

Take a walk on the wild side with this Jumbo Book containing 57 projects that can be made in the great outdoors.

Children's Literature

The Avenue Road Arts School has come up with a unique collection of art activities for kids that revolve around objects from nature and art supplies. The first step in this process is to start collecting interesting objects from outside. They might be pinecones or dried grasses, a butterfly wing, or twigs and stones. These treasures can be kept in a box until they are needed. Additions can be made to this collection of treasures every time there is a visit to the woods, beach, or even the backyard. The fifty-seven projects in the book include some of the most inventive art projects for kids this reviewer has ever seen. One such project is to build a layered landscape with dirt, rocks, and sand in a wide mouth jar. Toy dinosaurs are buried among the layers. Moss and twigs are added at the top to represent the surface of the earth. Stars are made from clay and held in place up in the "sky" with wire. Thus completes the dinosaur terrarium. Other projects include smudge tests that explore the colors of dirt as pigment, rocks that are painted to recreate cave paintings, dried leaves that are collected and collaged together, and twigs and raffia that are used to make spider webs. Another particularly imaginative activity is to make a chandelier with fruit frozen into ice that is hung from a wire mobile. (Either to be enjoyed outdoors in the winter or quickly before it melts.) An elaborate weathervane combines paint and wire, as well as wood and clay. An outdoor fountain is built with rocks, buckets, wire, and aluminum plates. Who would ever dream of making a flipbook of images of a banana rotting? Clear, open-ended instructions encourage great creativity while giving a good framework. Thecollection is well documented with photos and illustrations.