Crafting Secrets

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The art items in Kenya include sisal baskets, elephant hair bracelets, Maasai bead jewelry, musical instruments, silver and gold jewelry, soapstone sculptures, wooden carvings, tribal masks, Maasai figurines, paintings, prints and sculptures. These art items are available in the arts and craft markets and shops throughout the main tourist centers of Kenya.

Cloth and Fabric in Kenya also form interesting art items. The cloth and fabric available in Kenya are batik cloth, kangas (women’s wraparound skirts) with beautiful patterns and even Kenyan proverbs printed on them and kikois (type of sarong for men) that come in many different colors and textiles. These are good art items to take home from your Kenyan trip.

African jewelry has been quite popular for centuries in the world market. Kenya offers rare pieces of African jewelry containing cowry shells. Kenya is also known for its soapstone carvings found in Western Kenya. It is the Gusii and Abigusii ethnic groups which hand carve these Kissi stones into exquisite pieces of Kenyan art.

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Music

Benga is a truly Kenyan music style. Benga is high-energy dance music that originated after the 1940s when Luo musicians started playing traditional tunes with modern electrical instruments.

Most other popular music styles have received influences from abroad. Taarab is the traditional Swahili music played at the Kenyan coast, and is heavily influenced by Arabic and Indian music styles. Lingala – modern upbeat party music – came from Congo, where the deteriorating political situation made many artists flee to East Africa. American hip hop and gangsta rap has infiltrated Kenya like a virus. Pictures of 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg are everywhere in Nairobi.

Dance

The hypnotic swaying and leaping in Masai and Samburu dancing, are the best known forms of Kenyan dancing. In their energetic dancing, warriors display their strength by leaping high in the air.

The Masai and other tribes perform regularly for tourists who visit their villages. In tourist venues along the coast, Mijikenda dance groups often give performances.

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Sigana

Sigana is a traditional performance art which contains elements of all the major Kenya art forms: storytelling, song, music, dance, rituals etc. Active participation is a key feature of sigana. The line between performers and audience is less clear than in many other Kenya art forms.

You won’t see these often along the tourist trails, but the Mzizi Arts Centre in Nairobi  organizes monthly Sigana performances.

Theatre and performance

There are several theatre groups in Kenya, most of them based in Nairobi. Names to remember are the Mbalamwezi Theatre Group and the Phoenix and Miujiza Players. They often perform at the foreign cultural centres in Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu.

In Nairobi, there’s the Kenya National Theatre. It’s known for the controversy it created with the production “I Will Marry When I Want” by Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Ngugi wa Mirii, which brought them into confrontation with the government.

Kenyans reportedly also like of satire and stand up comedy. One popular group is Redykuylass (‘Rediculous’) which featured in a weekly TV program with a mix of political and social satire.

Literature

In Kenya, oral narratives are the oldest form of literature. Oral stories are still important in many communities. Written literature, in Swahili and English, emerged in the beginning of the twentieth century. However, only after Kenya’s independence (1963) a body of national literature came into being.

An important author (novelist, playwright and essayist) is Ngugi wa Thiong’o. As a child on missionary school, he was a devout Christian, but later he rejected Christianity and became a fierce critic of colonialism. He changed his name from James Ngugi to Ngugi wa Thiong’o in 1976 and embraced his native Kikuyu culture, as well as Marxism.

While having written the first novel in English by an East African author – “Weep not, child” (1964) – he published his first book in Kikuyu in 1980: “Caitaani Muthara-Ini” (Devil on the Cross). He now argued that literature written by Africans in a colonial language is not really African literature. In 1992 Ngugi became professor of literature at New York University.

Cinema

There is a small film industry in Kenya, which is struggling to stay alive, like elsewhere in Africa. However, a new generation of Kenyan film makers is emerging, inspired by the success of the Nigerian video industry. One such film director is Kibaara Kaugi, who in 2004 produced the acclaimed “Enough is enough” – a narrative of the famous Mau Mau uprising – on a minimal budget.

Also, foreign film makers have used Kenya as a backdrop for their works. The most famous example is of course Sydney Pollack’s “Out of Africa” (1985) with Merryl Streep and Robert Redford, which is about the life of Danish author Karen Blixen, who emigrated in the 1910s to Kenya to become a coffee farmer. A recent international movie is “The White Masai” (2005), after the real story of the Swiss woman Corinne Hofmann who married a Samburu warrior and joined tribal life. There is no happy ending here. These and other movies are reviewed on my movies about Kenya page.

Some Nairobi cinema houses are 20th Century Cinema (Mama Ngina Street), Fox Drive-In Cinema (Thika Road) and Nairobi Cinema (Uchumi House, Aga Khan Walk).

Crafts

In Kenya you will find much beautiful and fine craft work. It’s sometimes amazing to see people in rags sitting outside their ‘home’ (if you could call it that), and produce wooden carved tables and chairs of a beauty you won’t see anywhere in North America or Europe.

Most crafts are produced for tourists. It’s best to set aside any purist misgivings you might have over their authenticity, and just enjoy them for their own beauty (which they often have). Compare this to American or European culture, which is also eternally developing. The Beatles are just as ‘truly European’ as Beethoven is!

Wood carvings of people and animals can be bought everywhere. Classic are the very long sculptures of women carrying baskets on their heads.

Soap stone objects are another popular for of Kenya art. Soap stone is mined in western Kenya by the Gusii and Abigusii tribes. They then produce beautiful sculptures, chess sets etc. from it. Each piece is carved individually by the craftsmen and then wet sanded, polished and dyed all by hand. Soap stone products can be bought everywhere in Kenya.

Jewelry (often in the form of beads) are another Kenyan speciality and they can be bought in all colours of the rainbow. Jewelry is important in African culture. Much Kenyan jewelry contains cowry shells. They are not only beautiful but also symbolic.

Masai spears and shields are also popular souvenirs. But first check with your air company and your customs whether you can take them home. Another solution is having them sent home by mail. Some tourist shops offer this option.

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14 inch brown-black stripped wooden zebra face mask. Beautifully designed to reveal facial features. Perfect for gifts, decorations or as collectors item.

18 by 24 inch on wallpaper. Beautiful mixed medium art displays a man requesting permission to assist a woman.

2 ebony 9 inch candle holders. Beautiful spiral-snake design with firm base. Intricate art work with an excellent finish. Perfect for gifts, decorations or as collectors item. (1 pair)

Red/black-colored 4 inch round box with lid. Carved from soapstone. The etching reveals a traditional African dancer. The lid has a pick-up that gives an elephant impression. Perfect for storing jewelry.

5 inch beautiful multi-colored soapstone bowl with careful etchings that outline the silhouette tree and the endangered black African rhino. The colors are a mix of pink-purple-black. Perfect match with related colored vase and goblet. The handle is carved into a swan’s head. The accuracy involved in the making of this product can be displayed by the perfection in the swan’s bill and eyes. Perfect for gifts and decorations.

Meticulously carved 8 inch Ujama (pronounced uh-ja-maa) family village figurine. Carved from Ebony wood. Beautiful and careful design reveals members of a family all connected together, symbolic of relationships. Ujama comes from the base word jama meaning “family relation”. Ujama was a sort of division of labor and proceeds went towards the extended family and people living in the village. Perfect for gifts, decorations or as collectors item. Very symbolic piece of art.

Marble look alike 2 inch candleholder. Made from Asian* soapstone. The holder has a firm extended base for drip collection and mesh like design. (4 pieces)

Marble look alike 6 inch Asian* soapstone elephant carving. The elephant sculpture is carefully carved to reveal details like ivory tusks, trunk and ears.

1.Knit your own natural, hand-dyed luxurious silk shawls, scarves and wraps as birthday gifts and holiday gifts! Include a recycled paper card letting your special someone know that their gift was hand-knit and hand-dyed using natural dyes made with love from your very own garden or local farmer’s market!

2.Revive your wardrobe. Everyone has something white or pastel that they cannot wear because of some annoying food or beverage stain. Instead of pitching it, bring it back to life! Revitalize it with some homemade natural dye (and have fun doing it!)

3.Knitting shawls, scarves or comfy-cosy wraps as gifts is a great way to show your loved ones how much you care. Use undyed silk, wool, cashmere or silk/wool blend yarn and dye it in a natural dye of your choosing. Your loved ones will love it and the environment will thank you for it!

4.Add some passion to your bedroom curtains and dye them naturally with pomegranate, beet or mangosteen. You can even mix a little indigo in with any one of the above to create some purple passion!

5.Transform a stained white or pastel tablecloth into something beautiful again! Choose a dark-colored natural dye made from indigo, walnut hulls, pomegranate, beet or mangosteen so your next stains won’t be as visible!

6.Gather your old shawls, scarves, sarongs, sheets, dresses, t-shirts, towels and tablecloths and transform them into creative works of art! Using your own handmade natural dyes, you can make prayer flags, holiday flags, wall hangings, tapestries, wall art and more.

7.Get creative in your art space at home and at work. Make natural dyes for use in fabric art, dyeing canvas, batik art and whatever else inspires you. The possibilities are endless!

8.Go Green in the classroom! Take your class on a field trip to the local botanical garden, farmer’s market or nursery and select your plants for natural dyeing. Prepare natural dyes together as a class, bottle them up and use them to make safe, environmentally friendly arts & crafts projects and holiday gifts.

9.Get creative with your kids over summer vacation! Make your own natural dyes as a family and use them to make cool, tie-dye t-shirts that are colorful, safe and environmentally friendly!

10.Design your eco-friendly clothes or accessories line! Buy undyed organic cotton, hemp or bamboo fabric and dye them with your own natural dyes. You can even reuse patches of old fabric and dye it with a complimentary color, creating a textured, patchwork look to your design.

For step-by-step instructions on how to dye natural yarn and textiles with homemade natural dyes visit Aurora Silk:

http://www.aurorasilk.com/

If your business is selling arts and crafts, then you know that you have to get creative in finding ways to get your products seen.

One way is to have your arts and crafts on display in local restaurants that you use yourself.

Depending on the shape and size of your arts or crafts, this can be a very lucrative experiment!.. You should make sure to use a nice restaurant that you yourself go to, make sure its not really a fast paced one, as you want people who are lingering over a nice meal to notice and appreciate your art that may be hanging on the wall by their table, or that decorative shelf housing your crafts in a corner.

Start by taking yourself to dinner with a friend or family at this particular restaurant that you like, and while eating, and relaxing, try and notice walls or corners, where your creations would look great.

Pick your best tasteful pieces, that you feel would suit the restaurant, and then approach the owner, during the daytime when he/she is likely to be there planning the day, and talk to him/her about the idea of hanging your art (show the owner your pieces) maybe give him/her some idea of where you were thinking it should go, so as to take the guess work out of the equation, and make the owner feel like its not another project he has to deal with!

Come up with a deal, that he/she gets a percentage of the sale, and then make sure you give him/her your business cards and brochures, and also that there is a business card with the price of the piece with the piece. Do not put a great big read “for sale” sign on the piece!, you need something subtle and tasteful, possibly in the bottom right corner of the piece. If you have 3D creations that need to be on a shelf, then make sure your business card is attached with the price written on the back neatly or typed on..

This is another great way to get you and your business known in the community, and is a great way to get people to look at, and appreciate and hopefully purchase your creations!

Making a craft of any particular form is the way an individual can show creativity in what they are doing. Often you will find that when crafts are made there is a specific purpose in mind, perhaps Christmas or Birthday presents, or just a simple thank you to a friend or relative. Many arts can be inexpensive and the real purpose behind the craft regardless of whether it is practical or for display is to offer something you have created by hand to a person who you think will appreciate the receiving of said craft.

A simple definition of crafts is a project that requires a step by step process to reach the required result. There are a multitude of forms of arts and crafts from paper folding, knitting, sewing, crocheting, beading or painting, the end result is the vision the creator had from the outset. There are many more different forms than these but this gives you an idea on what a craft can be considered. Crafts can give to children great assistance with creative skills allowing the children to learn from something they do and use their own creativity in producing a desired result.

Many crafts of course will require the initial purpose of the items involved, whether you are knitting and require knitting needles, wool and a pattern, or whether you are creating a collage requiring a base board, glue and materials for the collage. Some types of crafts of course will be more expensive to create than others but again this all depends on the purpose of creating the item and the intended recipient for which the craft is made.

You will find that there are many places you can purchase items for craft making, almost all malls or shopping centers will have a craft store of some sort where you can purchase most of the required items you will need. This does of course depending on the project you have in mind. The best way to start out is to use as much of your home materials as you can perhaps starting with a collage or similar and then lead on to further more creative and complex crafts as you see your children becoming more competent. There are many inexpensive options such as cutting up old magazines and perhaps the purchase of glue, beads and glitter etc that you can use for your initial projects and then your child will probably give you ideas on what form of craft they might want to proceed to next.

When you have the opportunity perhaps to work on crafts with your children you will find that while the event itself is fulfilling your children also improve their interaction skills and their creativity can begin to flourish. You may even discover your child is very artistic in one field or another. Add to that the sense of accomplishment your child will feel at completion of a task and you are on to a win-win situation.

Not only do you get to spend more time with your child but you find you will open avenues for discussion of every day events and you may find that you yourself enjoy the process just as much as it is benefiting your child. Not to mention the desired craft at the end of your endeavors.

When creating craft items this will improve the thinking and problem solving skills of your children as they themselves think of perhaps alternative crafts for your next project as well as ways to make your current project more eye catching or even more useful to your intended recipient. Making items also allows them to make small decisions of their own in the artistic content of whatever it may be you are creating which in turn gives them confidence and the ability to feel they have the ability to perhaps master larger tasks.

Building the self esteem and confidence in a child is a process learned over time and using crafts as a tool for your child to take part in the entire process and see the results is a great step in assisting in this area of your Childs growth. Make sure that your child is involved in the entire process from what the craft will be or how it will eventually look and give them the freedom to express their creativity. You will only reap benefits in time spent with your children and their opportunities to learn.

Making a craft of any particular form is the way an individual can show creativity in what they are doing. Often you will find that when crafts are made there is a specific purpose in mind, perhaps Christmas or Birthday presents, or just a simple thank you to a friend or relative. Many arts can be inexpensive and the real purpose behind the craft regardless of whether it is practical or for display is to offer something you have created by hand to a person who you think will appreciate the receiving of said craft.

A simple definition of crafts is a project that requires a step by step process to reach the required result. There are a multitude of forms of arts and crafts from paper folding, knitting, sewing, crocheting, beading or painting, the end result is the vision the creator had from the outset. There are many more different forms than these but this gives you an idea on what a craft can be considered. Crafts can give to children great assistance with creative skills allowing the children to learn from something they do and use their own creativity in producing a desired result.

Many crafts of course will require the initial purpose of the items involved, whether you are knitting and require knitting needles, wool and a pattern, or whether you are creating a collage requiring a base board, glue and materials for the collage. Some types of crafts of course will be more expensive to create than others but again this all depends on the purpose of creating the item and the intended recipient for which the craft is made.

You will find that there are many places you can purchase items for craft making, almost all malls or shopping centers will have a craft store of some sort where you can purchase most of the required items you will need. This does of course depending on the project you have in mind. The best way to start out is to use as much of your home materials as you can perhaps starting with a collage or similar and then lead on to further more creative and complex crafts as you see your children becoming more competent. There are many inexpensive options such as cutting up old magazines and perhaps the purchase of glue, beads and glitter etc that you can use for your initial projects and then your child will probably give you ideas on what form of craft they might want to proceed to next.

When you have the opportunity perhaps to work on crafts with your children you will find that while the event itself is fulfilling your children also improve their interaction skills and their creativity can begin to flourish. You may even discover your child is very artistic in one field or another. Add to that the sense of accomplishment your child will feel at completion of a task and you are on to a win-win situation.

Not only do you get to spend more time with your child but you find you will open avenues for discussion of every day events and you may find that you yourself enjoy the process just as much as it is benefiting your child. Not to mention the desired craft at the end of your endeavors.

When creating craft items this will improve the thinking and problem solving skills of your children as they themselves think of perhaps alternative crafts for your next project as well as ways to make your current project more eye catching or even more useful to your intended recipient. Making items also allows them to make small decisions of their own in the artistic content of whatever it may be you are creating which in turn gives them confidence and the ability to feel they have the ability to perhaps master larger tasks.

Building the self esteem and confidence in a child is a process learned over time and using crafts as a tool for your child to take part in the entire process and see the results is a great step in assisting in this area of your Childs growth. Make sure that your child is involved in the entire process from what the craft will be or how it will eventually look and give them the freedom to express their creativity. You will only reap benefits in time spent with your children and their opportunities to learn.

Involving children into artwork will assist them discover their creativity, creativeness, inventive skills and kill boredom without spending too much. Art is smart way for kids to express themselves, there are totally different sorts of creative expressions they could explore. Certainly one of them is watercolor painting.

Watercolors are easy to clean so children may easily use them. There are additionally completely different watercolour exercises that kids can do. For instance, the moist on moist technique. Let the children apply watercolour on a dry and wet piece of paper. Let them describe how making use of paint on dry and wet surfaces are completely different and where they are often used.

• With colour blending, let youngsters mix completely different colors and draw different pictures that they see around them.

• Black and white watercolour portray is one other great activity. Color your entire paper in black after which let it dry. After drying, draw on the black paper using white watercolour with their very own design. It is also performed the other means around, with the paper white and the watercolour designs in black.

• Thread painting makes use of thread which is dipped in paint. Organize the thread on the paper in no matter way you want. Then press and pull the thread creating designs on the paper.

• Use watercolour in coloring decorative gadgets that the youngsters made like paper maches.

• Watercolor painting can additionally be an incredible activity for parents and their kids. Everything these days is so quick-paced that we forget to spend extra time with family and children. Watercolour portray is a good way to slow down and luxuriate in life with our family.

When educating children with art, it may be very important perceive that what the youngsters see is different from what adults see. They may colour animals that are removed from their actual colors. Let the children express themselves in this inventive experience. It may be very important remember the actual fact that children have potential for artistic expression. Mother and father, guardians and teachers have the accountability to let children categorical their artistry.

There are different research exhibiting that involving kids in art would assist them reduce their stress. They’re able to develop self-confidence since they’ve created one thing which is appreciated by other people. Aside from bettering their confidence, they are additionally in a position to enhance the senses like vision and sense of touch.

Educating artwork on youngsters could assist in their cognitive development, improve their memory, helps them perceive higher, and allow them to change into competent. Artwork could additionally improve their symbolic communication since children were capable of translate what they see around them into their own symbols and reflection of reality.

For older kids, parents may still interest them in painting. Artwork supplies and artwork books could pique their interest and eventually contain them in art and craft making. Watercolour painting is simply one of many artwork media which could be maximized by the kids. Adolescents and young teens may explore other media like comedian strips. Mother and father ought to keep in mind that youngsters’s involvement in art ought to never be compelled, as a substitute the kids needs to be provided with opportunities the place they will make their very own decision.