The Artful Parent

An artful advent calendar

Maia and I (mostly I) made our advent calendar over Thanksgiving, using the watercolor resist paintings from last week. It's a paper doll chain with an artful holiday activity written on the back of each apron.

Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year. Last year we weren't able to do much in the way of celebrating for various reasons, so I'm especially excited to enjoy the holiday with my family this year! And excited about this advent calendar and all the activities I included!

I'll share with you how I made the calendar, in case you'd like to do something similar, and the activities that I included on mine.

First I cut each of Maia's seven paintings in half and she helped me glue them in two long strips, edges overlapping. I could have done just one strip, but thought two shorter ones would be easier to work with. We pressed the strips under heavy cookbooks while the glue dried.

Note: I don't generally like to alter Maia's artwork like this, but in this case she knew from the beginning that these paintings were going to be for her advent calendar.

We then folded the strips of paper accordian style.

I sketched a doll to fit,

Traced her onto the paper,

And started cutting. Because of the heavy watercolor paper, I only cut about three layers at a time, then retraced the doll and cut some more.

 

I then had two paper doll chains that I glued together to create one long chain. I trimmed off a doll or two so I'd have 25.

I decided to use paper aprons for the dates and the activities. I wrote the day of the month on the front and the activity on the back, then glued the aprons on using a thin strip of glue at the top. Each morning I will let Maia pull off the apron and we'll read what our activity is for the day.

By the way, if you wanted to make a quicker version of this paper doll chain, you could use colored construction paper attached with tape.

Here's our advent activity list:

1.       Make Christmas cards with styrofoam prints.
2.       Cut out paper snowflakes and make a mobile with the snowflakes.
3.       Feed the birds and draw them.
4.       Make salt dough ornaments with the art group.
5.       Go to the Christmas tree farm and choose our tree.
6.       String popcorn and cranberries and use them to decorate our tree.
7.       Make stained glass stars for the windows.
8.       Go for a winter nature walk and collect items for our nature table.
9.       Make a winter nature table.
10.   Paint small canvases to give as gifts.
11.   Do glue batik with the art group.
12.   Make and decorate a Christmas stocking for Daphne using glue batik.
13.   Have a family art night and make a holiday mural (on paper).
14.   Make and decorate a gingerbread house.
15.   Try melted crayon paintings.
16.   Make candied and spiced nuts together.
17.   Write a letter to a friend or family member.
18.   Finish glue batik with art group.
19.   Make hot chocolate and play games.
20.   Donate old toys to Goodwill or another charity. Go shopping for a new toy to donate through a local charity.
21.   Have a friend over to make and decorate Christmas cookies together.
22.   Create a piece of crazy art with five different kinds of art materials. (just for fun!)
23.   Make popcorn and watch a Christmas movie together.
24.   Go for a drive to look at Christmas lights.
25.   Merry Christmas!

The House in the Night

There is a very special book that Maia is requesting almost every night now. It's called The House in the Night and is written by poet Susan Marie Swanson and illustrated by Beth Krommes. The text is lyrical and magical and we all love it. Harry and myself as much as Maia. Here's how it starts out:

Here is the key

    to the house.

In the house

    burns a light.

In that light

    rests a bed.

On that bed

    waits a book.

In that book

    flies a bird.

(And then the magic really begins! See the child on the bird in the photo below?)

We've also been reading and enjoying her other books, including To Be Like the Sun and The First Thing My Mama Told Me.

On Tuesday, I will post an interview with Susan Marie Swanson, the author, about her writing and on sharing poetry with children. Readers (that's you, dear friend) will have a chance to win a signed copy of this book! This would make a wonderful gift for a small child in your life so make sure to check back early next week.

A few other things (while they're on my mind):

On Monday, I will post about our advent calendar, to start off a month of artful holiday activities. I'm really excited about this!

I've added a portal in my sidebar for the Children's Art Gallery flickr group I set up. Click through to see the art (and photos of art making) already added. And please feel free to add your own photos!

Re Art pen pals: I'm still receiving e-mails from parents hoping to match their children and I've decided I'm okay with that. I really do want to match up everyone who wants a pen pal. So if you missed the boat the first time and want an art pen pal, send me an e-mail (jevanthul@yahoo.com) with art pen pal as the subject, and make sure to include your children's names, ages, and mailing address. I'll probably process them once a week and match the kids as I can. So no guarantees, but I'll do what I can!

WNC LINC

I have some exciting news:

I have been chosen as one of five blogs and online news sites in Western North Carolina to participate with the Asheville Citizen-Times in a project called WNC LINC.

Five print newspapers across the country have been chosen by American University’s Institute for Interactive Journalism to take part in a grant-funded, year-long pilot project to explore how online sites and traditional print media can learn from and help each other. And each print paper has partnered with five local blogs and online news sites for the year. Apparently the Citizen-Times looked at over 250 local sites before selecting the ones they wanted to partner with for WNC LINC. I'm flattered to be chosen out of so many other good sites in the area!

I'm also excited about this project and look forward to being involved in something bigger like this. Something that may serve as a test for future collaborations between online and print media and may also possibly influence the trajectory of journalism (lofty thinking!).

So what does my involvement entail, you ask?

As this is a pilot project, we are still working this out. However for now it means regular communication with the other partners as we figure out ways we can learn from each other and help each other reach our respective goals. We will also be linking to each other using a special sidebar widget with tabs for each participating site (which is still being finalized but should be available for my blog soon).

Note: The other participating sites are mostly news sites, including the Southern Highland Reader and AskAsheville, so if you are in Western North Carolina you can keep up with the local news from my site (or, more specifically, from the widget links), and if you are from another part of the world, well you can ignore it or you can experience our beautiful area vicariously!

I will continue to post about exactly what I love posting about – children’s art and creativity. I'll post what I want, when I want, as always. But over the course of the year, I will learn from the other partners and from the newspaper about ways to navigate this new world of online journalism. And while I've never considered myself a journalist, I hopefully have something to learn from the others, and, likewise, they from me. I am excited about this project and look forward to seeing what I have to offer to the conversation.

Miniature Folk Art Houses at The North Carolina Arboretum

 

I wanted to share about a new exhibit we saw yesterday at The North Carolina Arboretum. Miniature folk art houses! And churches, ferris wheels, school houses, light houses, covered bridges, and carousels. Everything made between 1890 and 1950. And everything in miniature! Maia was in love. We all were.

The exhibit is called Building Small: American Folk Art Houses and Structures and is being displayed at the Arboretum until January 3rd. If you live in the Asheville area, you need to go!

These folk art houses are from the collection of Steven Burke and Randy Campbell, the largest such collection in the country. According to the exhibit attendant this is the first (and probably only) time this collection will be exhibited. So again, go see it.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving!

An artful day

Rubbing vegetable oil over a crayon drawing to create a transparent stained-glass effect. Idea from one of MaryAnn Kohl's books as usual.

Many drawings of people.

Adding pieces of bleeding tissue paper (with water), to "color" the clothes.

Lots of art happening here.

What are your kids creating these days?

Land Art for Kids

I just found out (via resurrection fern) about a great new project called Land Art for Kids. It's wonderful! Like Andy Goldsworthy for kids.

Richard Shilling, a land artist himself, and Julia Brooklyn have written a book, called Land Art for Kids - On the Beach aimed at getting 3 to 8 year olds outside and creating nature art. If you follow the link, you can preview many or all of the pages. It looks like it would be super inspiring for kids and parents alike.

I'm buying the book as a Christmas gift for Maia. (For me really, but I hope she likes it too!)

Melting Crayon Art Christmas Paintings with Watercolor Resist

We did some good old-fashioned watercolor resist painting the other day, using a melting crayon art technique and mostly Christmas colors.

Melting Crayon Art is Fun!

First, Maia drew with crayon on watercolor paper. I've been wanting to try more of a melted crayon technique, which I had read about in one of MaryAnn Kohl's books, but didn't have the warming tray that she recommends using. However, I finally decided to try it anyway, and use a hot cookie sheet instead. It worked very well!

I placed watercolor paper on a cookie sheet and put both in a 275 degree oven for a few minutes to let them heat up. I set the cookie sheet on top of a couple of towel layers to protect the table and had Maia wear an oven mitt to protect her free hand.

As she drew on the hot paper, the crayon melted, creating more intense, color-saturated lines. Maia thought this was Very Cool. The cookie sheets stayed warm long enough for Maia to do one drawing. I alternated two sheets, one in the oven, and one in front of Maia, so there was always one ready to work on.

 

Afterward, we went back to the studio to paint over the melting crayon drawings with watercolors. I mixed up some watercolors from tubes rather than using the liquid watercolors this time, only because I wanted specific colors (red, green, white) that I didn't have in my "tropical" set of liquid watercolors.

I love the effect of watercolor resist! I think they're beautiful. We have big plans for these paintings, by the way. Maia and I are going to make our own advent calendar this year with fun, artful activities for the countdown to Christmas.

Update: Here's the advent calendar we made with these melting crayon paintings.

(This post contains affiliate links.)

Art pen pals: let's get this party started!

277 kids in 40 US states, 20 countries, and 6 continents will be sending their artwork and letters through the mail and around the world to each other. Woohoo! And while I did question my sanity a few times (especially when doing data entry at midnight), I can't tell you how excited I am about this! Really, very excited!

Everyone should have received matches by now. If not, please e-mail me (jevanthul@yahoo.com). I may have typed up an e-mail address incorrectly or something.

Next step?

Make art.

Send to pen pal.

With or without letter.

Repeat.

I would love to keep this art pen pal idea growing and spreading somehow, especially since there is obviously an interest and I keep getting more and more e-mails! However, to borrow an expression from Harrison Shepherd, the lead character in Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna, my data entry assistant and I reside in the same shoes.* And my own family would like me to spend more time with them and less in front of the computer.

Enter: Flickr

So I started a Flickr group, titled Children's Art Gallery. You are all hereby cordially invited to post your children's art work to this site (with your kid's permission). And please do! I'd love to see it!

The Flickr gallery is for everyone, not just art pen pal participants, however I was also thinking that parents seeking art pen pals for their children could post a comment in the discussion section: "Seeking art pen pal for my 6 year old son." etc. and find a match that way. I have virtually no experience with Flickr -- does this sound doable?

Okay, enough for today. Let's get some art flying around the world!

* Shepherd and Kingsolver put it much more elegantly, of course. In a letter to his publisher, Shepherd (a writer) said,

Your letter made reference to my secretary-typist, to whom you plan to forward more notations. Be assured, the secretary-typist will be in intimate contact with the author, the telephone receptionist, cook, and housekeeper, as we all presently inhabit the same four-dollar shoes. With clothing-ration coupons as they are, it's a useful arrangement. (p.294)

An art pen pal update

Just so you know where I am with this:

I matched everyone up last night and have started sending out e-mails with pen pal match info. This is a bit time consuming and I'm working my way through the list slowly, as I have time, beginning with the younger kids. If you've received an e-mail regarding one of your children, but not the others, please be patient. I should have the others to you soon(ish). I will work on this tonight as much as I can, and this weekend. FYI, Maia has dental surgery tomorrow (ugh!), so I doubt I'll get much of anything done tomorrow.

Also, if you sent me an e-mail today regarding an art pen pal, I will try to match up your child.

What I've been doing

Reading Barbara Kingsolvers latest amazing book, The Lacuna. Slowly. When I can. Mostly while nursing. Also slipping away to my favorite bakery/coffeeshop for some reading time after Harry gets home.

Entering over 200 children's names into a spreadsheet so I can match them up with other children of similar ages. E-mails are still trickling in, but I've got most down so far. I just need to go buy some paper today so I can print them out. The next step is to match each child up with his or her art pen pal so we can get this party started! (Btw, any 12-14 year olds out there who want an art pen pal? I have a couple I need to match up...)

Exploring Typepad widgets when I should have been sleeping. Things like "follow me on Twitter" which I haven't added yet but someone said I should. I'm not even really sure what Twitter is! Similar to Facebook?

And starting to add a blogroll. Let me know, either through a comment or an e-mail, if you know of a blog or two you think I should consider adding. Feel free to tell me about your own!