The Artful Parent

I had to share these...

Harry took these photos and I just love them! Our friends Josie and Gil were over with their parents a few days ago. While we (the parents) were all talking, the kids were each doing their own thing, completely oblivious to the camera.

Josie is working on a sewing card, I'm not sure what Gil is playing with, and what is Maia doing? Sitting on top of the table eating out of the sugar bowl! Ack! Where on earth is this girl's mother?!

More faces! -- these are for the felt board

Faces, faces, and more faces...

I cut these faces out of felt today and Maia carried each eye, each mouth, each ear, one at a time, to her room to add to the felt board. These faces (above) are about nine inches tall, which keeps the little noses and eyebrows somewhat manageable. I didn't make them up, although you could easily do so. I used a template copied from another library book: Felt Board Fun by Liz and Dick Wilmes. It was written in 1984 and I couldn't find it on Amazon or Powell's, but here's a more recent book by the same authors. And it looks like there are other similar books, as well. Making felt board scenes just became so much easier! I can make a photocopy of a page of line drawings, lay a drawing on top of a sheet of felt, and start cutting.

I also cut out a felt person dressed in winter gear and a snowman (creative placement of mouth and scarf by Miss Maia).

After assembling all the felt faces, Maia was inspired to draw a big face on her chalkboard. Now why didn't I do more of this this winter!

And, in the spirit of felt boards and the upcoming holiday, I thought you'd like to see this beautiful little felt board valentine card on etsy that Amber told me about. It's made by blynken and nod, who also makes amazing custom flannel board sets. Check them out!

Art project turned lunch

We made these bread dough faces the other day, using the "Easiest Bread Dough" recipe in MaryAnn Kohl's First Art.

I thought we'd make a variety of shapes, like last time, but Maia is on her faces kick and just wanted to make faces out of the dough. She started using tiny dough balls for the eyes, but switched to currants when I brought them out.

Although the first thing she did after they cooled off was eat all the currants off the faces! Next time, I think I'll try this with a whole wheat bread dough recipe for something healthier.

I want to start getting Maia more involved in making our snacks and meals -- in the hopes that she'll be more interested in eating the results if she helps. Any ideas? Do your kids help you cook? Maia usually helps me with desserts, but not meals, and I'd like to change that.

I'm Excited about Papel Picado!

Don't these look pretty and festive? I checked out a new stack of books from the library recently, including one called Making Magic Windows by Carmen Lomas Garza on the Mexican art of papel picado (cut-paper art). Maia and I tried some yesterday and we both loved it. It's pretty much like cutting snowflakes out of colored tissue paper, with varying degrees of complexity. I worked my way through the first half of the book, meaning I did most of the easier ones.

Maia really got into making papel picado, too, and made even more than I did, which is no surprise considering she's glued to her scissors these days. She mostly just cut lines which don't show up well when you open the paper up, although she did cut out a few triangles and other shapes.

Afterwards, we followed the instructions for attaching the papel picado onto string for hanging (using a glue stick and folding the top of the tissue paper over).

The whole project was easy and fun and makes me want to drape our entire house with these pretty banners! And to make some to hang in the window, too. I think I'll try my hand at some Valentine-themed designs. Wouldn't they make great party decorations?

Some weekend art and studio use

Nothing like putting your mind to something to make it happen. After pretty much ignoring the studio the last few months (except for its double function as laundry room -- wish I could ignore that!), I finally cleaned it out a bit and made an effort to USE it. The space isn't heated, so it's cold in the winter. Maia doesn't seem to mind, but I do. Last winter I used a little space heater but I haven't been able to find it anywhere. Oh well.

Here, Maia's using fingerpaints and the whole box of rollers, sponges, and scrubbies. Fun, fun. And not too much of a mess to clean up.

She also appropriated our cookie press (which I don't think I've ever used) for her playdough work. Apparently the attachments are great for stamping -- they have nice little handholds!

We'll have to try cookies, too, one of these days. Anyone have a recipe to use with cookie presses? Do you just use a sugar cookie dough or do you need something especially soft?

Drawing fruit from real life

Did you know that young children can draw things from life, not just from imagination? This is a big "Duh!" for me, but for some reason I didn't even think about it. I just assumed little kids drew faces and monsters and houses and suns, etc, as they thought they should look but without really looking at them. And of course they do that too, but I think they can also be very observant and translate what they see onto the paper.

This so-called lesson in drawing from life was completely spontaneous. Maia wanted to draw an orange, but said she didn't know how and asked me to draw one for her. Instead of doing that, or just telling her to draw an orange circle, I grabbed the fruit bowl, set an orange in front of her and talked with her about it. We talked about color, shape, and texture, and I encouraged her to draw what she saw as we talked about it. In the photo above, she's drawing an avocado, using dots to portray the bumpy skin, and circles for the stem end and also for the sticker.

Here's a lime.

A grapefruit.

And a bunch of bananas.

She loved doing this and kept asking for other things to talk about and draw. She also drew an onion and a head of garlic, then we went to the store in search of other fruit to draw, including grapes, kiwi, and apples. Maybe we'll collate these drawings into special fruit- and vegetable-themed books... Or maybe I'll just remember that drawing from life can be fun and rewarding!

A Valentine's face and a few others

Here's the current status of artful activities in our household: lots of drawing by Maia, nothing artful whatsoever by yours truly, and very little painting or other use of the studio by anyone (partly my fault, partly weather-related since it's an unheated space).

Maia regularly asks for fun "projects" -- i.e. anything involving painting, shaving cream, messes, food coloring, more messes, paint splattering, painting with trucks, color mixing, etc. and I regularly put her off and instead hand her paper and markers and encourage her to draw. Because it is almost completely mess free and requires little planning or cleaning on my part.

Embarrassing, but true.

This is going to change. Soon. Really.

However, on the bright side, I love watching Maia's drawings evolve. She's been cranking out faces lately. Here are a few of my favorites. I love the red heart eye above. Probably not intentional, but cool nonetheless, especially since Valentine's day is around the corner.

Here she's drawn some arms and legs to go with a face.

But then she decided to cut out just the face and also asked me to help cut out some of her other faces and shapes.

One of these days I might get my act together and embroider one of her faces onto a pillow a la Soule Mama. But for now, I'm going to focus on aiding and abetting some messy art as soon as possible.

I'm back

Hey. It's me. Jean.

I'm back on the computer, back in blogland, back here.

And I'm feeling pretty good. I didn't for a while. Felt pretty awful actually. I didn't think I'd be able to do this blog. That I just didn't have it in me anymore. But I couldn't bring myself to sign off forever or to take it down or anything and now I'm so glad I didn't. Because since I've been feeling better I've been looking around at the art we're doing and starting to get excited again. I've started looking through my favorite kids' art books, started taking a few photos again, and even started cleaning out the studio (it needed it!). And I've been itching to blog again.

I'm kinda nervous since it's been a while.

But here I am. I'm going to give it another try.

Anyone still out there?

By the way, thank you all for all of your comments, e-mails, and kind words. I appreciate them so, so much! I'm sorry I've been incommunicado for the past couple of months, but your thoughts and words mean so much to me.

With love, Jean