The Artful Parent

A couple of drawings and a blogging break

Just a couple of drawings by Maia today -- a parrot above and a friendly monster below -- and a note to say that I'll be taking a blogging break this weekend. I'm planning to spend as little time as possible on the computer and as much time as possible with my family, in the garden, and in front of the sewing machine. I hope you have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend.

P.S. I've started listing drawing winners on the actual post rather than doing a new post just about a drawing winner. So if you're wondering who won Tif's painting, head over to her interview...

A new cloak and some children's gardening ideas

I've been wanting to make one of these cloaks for a long time now, and finally did it. I complicated things a little by lining it, but the basic tutorial (by indietutes) is super easy. I meant this for Maia's dress up box, but she's been wearing it everywhere. She's climbing a tree at May Faire with her friend Stella in the photo above.

Here's a photo with the hood up. I used a thrifted skirt for the green fabric and lined it with a pink and white floral print.

Also, unrelated, I've been thinking of more child-friendly fun ideas for the garden that I'd like to do:

• Make some concrete stepping stones and decorate them with Maia using leaves, flowers, pebbles, etc.
• Build a garden weaving structure to do all kinds of large, outdoor weaving on throughout the year using rope, yarn, sticks, flowers, grasses, etc. Use this as inspiration. Also, thanks to Elizabeth and her comment on my teepee post for the idea.
• Make garden wish flags.
• Put up more birdhouses.
• Plant a sensory garden in containers. Have pots of moss, grass, hens & chicks (and what else?) on a table.
• Make a beaded wind chime. I saw a great tutorial for one a while back but can't seem to find it at the moment.

How I plan our art activities

Hannah asked me on facebook the other day for advice about planning art activities. And I fumbled a quick reply but then thought about it some more and decided to share my thoughts here as well as solicit your ideas and comments.

Here’s what Hannah asked:

How do you decide which craft to do with your daughter on a particular day? I have so many kid craft books and get overwhelmed!

And, the truth is, I don’t have a set way I go about it. Sometimes I plan activities, sometimes I wing it. Oftentimes Maia has her own ideas of what she wants (or doesn't want) to do. (And she does a lot of drawing and painting on her own throughout the day.)

But, since this post is about planning, here are some different ways I plan:

Planning with Books

Sometimes I sit down with a stack of books (perhaps Scribble Art, The Preschooler's Busy Book, Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots, my childhood copy of Making Things) and thumb through them, making a list of activities that I’d like to try with Maia or (in the past) with the art group.

This list can be really long! Sometimes I find myself jotting down almost every activity. Because I want to try it all!

But then I’ll go back through the list and put a star next to the ones that a.) I really, really want to try, or b.) that I think Maia will especially like and is developmentally ready for, or that c.) I have all the materials for. Generally I will try to narrow down the list to activities that fit at least 2 out of the 3 criteria above.

Then I’ll put the list up on the fridge where I can see it every day. I’ll use it as inspiration and a reminder of the activities I’d like to try. I might plan to do one of them the next afternoon and since I have the project and materials in my head, I can start preparing mentally and physically by setting aside the time for it, possibly gathering the materials together in one place from around the house, making sure we have everything we need and/or running out to the store for something we need.

Sometimes I’ll plan an activity a day for a week. For example:

·         Monday: Make our own postcards

·         Tuesday: Finish postcards and send off to friends and family

·         Wednesday: Do some more salt painting

·         Thursday: Get out the clay and try coils or pinch pots

·         Friday: Try some observational drawing

·         Saturday: Make teddy bear bread or other bread shapes (maybe alphabet)

·         Sunday: Marble paper

And that’s usually enough to get us started for the week. We might do only 4 or 5 out of the 7 activities, and probably do several not on the list, but it still helps to have the list. And most weeks I don’t get this organized. Sometimes I just add an idea or two to my regular to-do list.

Once, when I was super ambitious, I made a list of 30 activities. Please note, though, that there are a couple things on that list that I still haven’t done, such as grow a rock sugar crystal or dye white flowers in food coloring. On the other hand I did (eventually) try most of the other things on the list. Something I attribute to the power of the list (I love lists). Oh, and I just remembered my friend Jennie's doorway into summer list.

Planning Around a Material

Sometimes I’ll brainstorm activities I can do with a particular material, either a new one or one we already have in the studio. I’ll use past activities as inspiration, ones I’ve seen in books or around the web, or, just the material itself. And come up with new (to me anyway) ideas and concepts and combinations. Some work out and some don’t so well, but the experimenting is fun.

If the activity is something I don’t have the materials for, I might plan a trip to the art supply store or add something to my “to order” list. And so this project might not happen for a week or a month, depending, but I’ve started to think about it.

Getting ideas from around the web

Or, I’m surfing the web and reading other blogs and I see something that I would like to try or a project that inspires another idea. And either I’ll do it right away with Maia or I’ll keep it in mind and seek out the materials I need, etc.

Being Spontaneous

Or, Maia seems to need direction or asks to do an “art project” (as opposed to just starting to draw or paint or whatever on her own). So we’ll just go back into the studio and get out a material (the collage tray or liquid watercolors or whatever) and start playing around with it and see where that goes.

We’ll often fall back on something that we do regularly – collage or watercolor resist, for example—although I might have a project I’ve been wanting to try and if the stars are aligned (i.e. we have all the right materials, etc) then we might do that.

Strewing

Maia goes to preschool three mornings a week and sometimes I try to have a few things set up for when she gets home, including an art material or activity. I might put a new library book on the sofa, a puzzle on her bed, the playdough and playdough tools on her little red table, and perhaps some papers and a hole punch at the big table. She might ignore a couple of the things I've set out but really get into one or two of the others.

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So that’s all to say that I’m a planner sometimes and a spur-of-the-moment gal sometimes and somewhere in between most of the time. I love to plan when I have the time but am overly-ambitious in my planning for one and don’t like to be tied down to a schedule for another so ultimately any planning I do is more for inspiration and general ideas and a gentle kick in the butt than for a plan with a capital P that I follow through to the letter.

What about you? I would love to hear how all of you plan or otherwise fit art into your day. So please share!

Painting in the swimming pool

One kiddie pool + one large sheet of butcher paper + several balls dipped in paint = a super fun warm weather painting activity.

I've been wanting to try this large scale ball painting project with Maia for a while now and and am glad I finally did. (We've done something similar on a much smaller scale with marble rolling.)

I taped a sheet of butcher paper to the bottom of our plastic swimming pool, poured tempera paint into cake pans, and found an assortment of balls--bouncy balls, a huge wooden bead, and musical egg shakers. Tennis balls, wiffle balls, and softballs would work great as well. You could also try this with large ones such as soccer balls or basketballs.

By the way, the paper is actually construction paper (literally) bought in a large roll from Lowes for $10. This is a much better price than $40 Discount School Supply sells their butcher paper for! And much sturdier than the paper on newsprint rolls. I'm loving it.

First Maia and her friend Marlise covered the balls in paint.

Then they dropped the paint-covered balls in the swimming pool and rolled them back and forth and all around by tilting the pool.

Of course they were soon adding hand and foot prints to the painting. And, since paint is slippery, bottom prints.

I sprayed them (and the swimming pool) off with the hose and thought they'd want to splash around in the pool afterward but they chose a warm bath instead.

Have any of you tried painting with rolling balls or marbles?

Tif McDonald -- artist mama extraordinaire

Once an accountant, my friend Tif is a mama who left that world to be home with her daughter (now she has two), went back to school to study art, found her medium (encaustics), made time and space for her art, and now, has her first, beautiful show up at an art gallery. I find her story—as well as her energy and dedication (and, of course, her art)—incredibly inspiring and think you will too. I asked her a few questions about her journey and wanted to share the answers here.

***Note: Readers will have a chance to win this encaustic painting by Tif at the end of this interview.***

JEAN:  When I first met you, you were pregnant with your second daughter and going back to school for your art degree. Now you have your first gallery show of a beautiful group of encaustic paintings. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey?

TIF: The four years since have been very full!  Balancing art classes, studio time, and motherhood has been challenging and rewarding.  When Sadie was born I didn't have much time for classes or my art.  I stayed connected to art through art projects with my kids and helping in my older daughter's class.  A couple years ago I signed up to sell some work at an art/craft sale.  Committing to that and preparing the work was an important step for me.  And, selling my work felt fantastic! 

The past couple years I've taken summer courses at Penland School of Crafts.  When I'm there I am completely surrounded by and immersed in art.  I absolutely love it. 

I think the Penland experience, more than anything, inspired me to put my work out there and try to make a career out of it.  I've had work in other sales and art auctions since that first sale.  These led to commissions and opportunities to show my work, including the current show at Studio 103 in Black Mountain. 

It was (and is) so hard to put my work out there!  I am very critical of my work—I  always know that it can be better, and that I have more work to do or ideas to develop.  But, I think that first step of putting the work out there leads to other work and experiences that are all part of my continuing development as an artist.

JEAN: How did you find (make!) the time to make this happen with two young girls at home?

TIF: That has been, and continues to be, a constant struggle.  My youngest daughter is in preschool 4 hours/day.  I try to reserve that small block of time to be in the studio.  I've really had to be disciplined about protecting that time.  My studio is in the garage, so it is easy to be distracted with all the home responsibilities.  It is also so convenient to use that time for appointments, exercise, etc...  Approaching deadlines definitely help me stay disciplined.  As I spend more time working I have less time available for things like volunteering at school and free time to play/create with the kids. 

I am trying to fit it all in.  Sometimes it seems that the busier I am, the more I accomplish.  Other times I am aware that I'm not being the mom I want to be, and that I need to adjust things. Finding that balance is a constant struggle, but I hope that I'm teaching my children the importance of assessing and adjusting things in life to achieve a healthy, happy balance.

JEAN: Can you tell us how you found your medium? Or how it found you?

TIF: I had seen some work using beeswax and loved the dreamy quality of the wax. While I was at Penland I found a fantastic book in their store.  The book is The Art of Encaustic Painting: Contemporary Expression in the Ancient Medium of Pigmented Wax by Joanne Mattera.  It has all the info you need to start working with encaustics.  I found a workshop taught by a local encaustic artist, Celia Gray.  I love her work and she is a great teacher.  I was immediately hooked—it  is such a seductive medium! 

The following summer I took a mixed media class at Penland taught by another local artist, Leslie Noell with Celia Gray as the assistant.  I love that I can incorporate drawings, collage, paint, printmaking, etc. into the encaustic process.  I'd like to get back to some figure painting.  I have some new tools to try that will allow me to "play" with the idea of painting the figure with wax. I think I'll continue working in this medium for a long time.

JEAN: Any tips for other mamas who would like to make their art a priority?

TIF: I think just taking that first step to showing people your work and making some commitments to have a body of work will lead to other opportunities.  I have been reading a book that has been very helpful to me called:  The Artist's Guide: How to Make a Living Doing What You Love by Jackie Battenfield.  I occasionally meet with another artist mom to discuss the book and our efforts to make a living as artists.  I think connections with other artist moms have provided me with inspiration, direction, and support (Moms are so good at doing this for each other!).

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Readers who leave a comment by Friday, May 28^th at 12midnight EST will be entered into a random drawing for this 6"x6" encaustic painting of spring blossoms by Tif.

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The random number generator picked #72 so Kate wins Tif’s painting!

Her work is so beautiful. It reminds me a bit of Amy Ruppell, but this is more dream-like. Just lovely. Love your website, by the way.

Flower printing at May Faire

The flower printing activity was a success with the kids (and many of the adults as well) at May Faire today. We used liquid watercolors and special liquid watercolor stamp pads just like when we did this with the art group.

I actually made some of my own giant stamp pads with felt, a hot glue gun, and styrofoam trays, but it was a windy day and they seemed more likely to blow around so we ended up using the pads I bought from Discount School Supply. I'll save the handmade ones for another time.

Some kids stamp with the flowers and leaves, some use them like paint brushes. Some make random designs, some create specific patterns. It's so much fun to watch! And I just love how they turn out.

 

A thank you note

I wanted to share a note I received yesterday. One that really made my day. Maybe even my month. It's from my friend Dawn (who also reads this blog).

Thank you for all of your ideas. I have to say in all honesty that your blog makes me a happier mama. When we have a cool project to do, I feel more fulfilled and I feel like a better person. Not to mention that a lot of the end results are really beautiful.

Previous to meeting you, I don't think I realized that children's art went past a certain point-- that is to say that I thought we had the art scene going on with markers, crayons, fingerpaints, construction paper and an easel! Nothing wrong with those things, of course, but a whole new world has been opened. I love seeing our progress.

Thank you, Dawn! Thank you for your appreciation and also thank you for expressing so perfectly what I feel myself -- that being creative with my family makes me a better and happier mama. Of course my hope is to inspire others as well, through my blog, to make art and creativity a priority. So to receive confirmation that what I'm doing is affecting others in a positive way makes me feel amazing. (It can also make me tearful, but I cry easily!)

Comfy child's nightgown from adult t-shirt

I got into a sewing groove with the Kids Clothes Week Challenge and I've just kept going. I *should* be sewing Maia's purple monster costume since we've gone to the store and picked out materials for it (purple crushed velvet!) but I'm a little stumped as to how to make the spikes (zigzags) stiff enough to stick out from her body. So I'm procrastinating with a couple of smaller projects.

This one is a super comfy child's nightgown made from one of my t-shirts. It turned out pretty well, I think. Here's how I did it (since I'm sure you want to make one for your daughter as well, right?).

The t-shirt I picked out (wrinkles and all) was a fitted tee made of pale pink eyelet knit. It seemed well suited to a nightgown transformation, but I really think any t-shirt would work. This would be fun with a funky image tee.

First, I trimmed the sleeves and armpit areas to cut it down to Maia's size. If you're starting with a larger, baggier shirt, you might want to trim all the way down to the bottom to make more of an A line.

I turned the shirt inside out and pinned the sides that I just trimmed off. I sewed the sides first, angling very gently from the current seam so the transition would be seamless (ha!). Then I hemmed the sleeves. I turned the edge up just once since the knit won't unravel.

And last, I pulled in the fabric at the neckline to make some pleats in the front and the back (and make the neck Maia's size).

I sewed them on with a double line of stitches at the neckline.

That's all! Now, since I very conveniently had two of the exact same t-shirts (I think they were on clearance somewhere for some crazy low price of $2 or something), you can see the finished child's nightgown next to the original adult shirt.

Maia likes her new nightgown and it fits well.

I might make a second one, or perhaps another of the kind I sewed last year, since all she has in the pajama department are longsleeve/long pants and they won't cut it as it get's hotter.

teepee art and weaving ribbons

It started off simply enough. Maia wanted to help tie the twine onto the bean pole teepee and I said she could take the bottom half while I did the top.

And somehow, I don't even remember how now, ribbons got involved and she started to tie on ribbons and weave them through the twine.

So for the past few days she, and any friend who makes it over to our house, has been adding ribbons to our bean pole teepee.

 

We're taking garden art to a new level here.

Aprons for May Faire

These aprons are sitting in a basket, waiting to be sold at May Faire, our preschool fundraiser, this Sunday.

May Faire is the annual spring festival of the Asheville Waldorf community and proceeds benefit four different Waldorf schools in the area, including Dandelion Hill, which is Maia's (much beloved) preschool. If you live in the area and are looking for something fun to do with the kids this Sunday afternoon, then I hope you will come. I will be at the children's craft table doing flower printing with the kiddos (at least at the beginning) -- please come say hi!

Here are the details:

• Sunday, May 23rd from 2-5 pm
• at The Unity Center in Fletcher
• (2041 Old Fanning Bridge Rd, Mills River, NC)
• Cost is $3 per family.
• Here's the flyer if you want something to print out.

Besides flower printing, there will be lots of fun stuff for kids to do, including garland making, a scavenger hunt, ribbon wand making, silk dying, and a fishing pond game. Handcrafted items will be available for sale (including my children's aprons), as well as yummy food to eat.

Entertainment will include John Vorus playing the didgeridoo, Todd Crowe on the ukelele, Mary Sparks playing the hammered dulcimer, and Maria Wood doing a Kindermusik show. There will also be maypole dances at 4pm accompanied by the music of Rita Black from Musicke Antiqua.

Hope to see you there!