The Artful Parent

Floating bouquets

Spring is my favorite season -- perhaps because I was born in April, perhaps just because of all the plants pushing themselves out of the ground or blooming like there's no tomorrow. The creeping phlox, daffodils, crocus, and lilac blossoms have faded by now, but the irises, california poppies, viburnum, azaleas, mock orange, and rhododendrun are loaded with flowers. I love it! It's not that I don't love summer flowers too, but the spring flowers herald warmth and renewal after winter's bareness in a way that I crave.

I'm not the only one in the family who loves flowers. Maia picks bouquet after bouquet, for me and for others. It took me a long time to get her to keep stems on her flowers rather than just decapitating them. We've been floating blossoms in water for years!

These days she generally keeps the stems on the flowers, but last week when our friends were visiting she and Nikhil had fun making floating bouquets with flowers picked from around the yard. I thought they were pretty neat.

I offered Maia one of the garden beds to plant any way she wanted, by the way, thinking she'd grow carrots and peas or something (somehow forgetting that she's my child who won't touch vegetables). She declared she was planting flowers only and that they would be for picking bouquets all year long!

Exploring different art surfaces with toddlers

Last week for the toddler art group I taped a variety of materials to the studio tables with the idea of letting the kiddos explore what it felt and looked like to draw and paint on the different surfaces.

Here's the before photo. The tables are covered with crumpled aluminum foil, paper towels, wool, a plastic freezer bag, a row of wooden popsicle sticks, a sheet of fingerpaint paper, colored tissue paper, the insert to an acrylic box frame, some plastic easter eggs, and a plastic paint palette. In other words, surfaces with a variety of textures and colors that I thought would be interesting to draw and paint on. Other ideas include corrugated cardboard, bubble wrap, fabric, wax paper, sticky contact paper, sandpaper, and a mesh bag (the kind that onions or lemons are sold in sometimes). There are so many fun possibilities!

First I put out the Crayola Twistables Slick Stix (oil pastels in hard plastic cases -- I love these for toddlers!) so they could experiment with drawing on the different surfaces.

After they drew for a while, I set out some tempera paints and chubby brushes. Here Joe is painting on the plastic freezer bag with one hand and on the aluminum foil with the other.

Even 13 month old Fiona, one of our newest members, seemed excited about the materials!

This is definitely a process-not-product activity. It's very exploratory and seemed perfect for the toddlers, but I actually think older kids would enjoy it as well. Perhaps I'll set one up for Maia soon...

MaryLea Harris of Pink and Green Mama

MaryLea Harris, a former elementary art teacher, blogs as Pink and Green Mama and offers her two daughters a plethora of arts and crafts materials and encouragement. Join me in learning more about what inspires her and see her list of must-have art supplies!

***Note: Readers will have a chance to win three of her art lesson plans at the end of this interview.***

JEAN:  What is it about kids’ art that resonates so well with you?
 
MARYLEA:  I am a stay at home mom with two daughters, “E” is 8 years old and “C” is 4 years old. I was an Elementary art teacher in the public school system for 5 years before staying home to raise my girls. I love children’s art and the way kids are so fearless when they create. They don’t have that inner critic’s voice inside their heads (yet) telling them what they should or shouldn’t do. As an art teacher, it was so important for me to make art-making fun for my students. I know so many adults who had a grown-up during their own childhoods that ruined art for them; I even had a mean art teacher and an unpleasant piano teacher so I swore I would never be one of “those” grown ups!
 
I majored in studio art and art history with an emphasis on printmaking and painting in college. I interned for a summer as an art therapist’s assistant at a local hospital’s children’s oncology ward. My experiences as an art teacher and art therapy assistant have greatly influenced how I raise my girls and the kind of projects we always have going in our house. For example, we always have a few sensory boxes going in our playroom (a throw back to my art therapy sand box days!) and a fully stocked art studio with a variety of art materials available to the girls (a mini art classroom at home).

JEAN:  What inspires you to offer your children regular art and craft opportunities? What are your favorite materials and activities?
 
MARYLEA:  Art Making Opportunities? We have an art studio in our home in what is supposed to be the formal living room. I call it our “second play room”. We’ll never be one of those play-dough-free houses, I think kids are supposed to get messy and experiment, that’s what childhood is for!  “E” asked me if every kid is allowed to have art supplies in her bedroom and I said, “I certainly hope so!”
 
Safe Art Supplies: When “E” was 6 months old, I went back to school part time and earned my MFA with an emphasis on painting and computers and art. I was breastfeeding at the time and as a former printmaker, started creating my graduate art work with non-toxic art materials, which led me to a lot of mixed media work. As soon as “E” was big enough, I started bringing her into my art studio with me and handed her art materials. She was painting with watercolors and acrylics well before her first birthday. I try to use safe art materials with my kids as much as possible but I also allow them to use materials that a lot of parents wouldn’t, like permanent markers (yes, I know they’re not non-toxic and they’re stinky!) and glue guns. With supervision (and an open window) of course! I think that kids should be exposed to a wide variety of art materials and opportunities to experiment with them.
 
Favorite art materials? It’s hard to name just a few which is why I wrote three different blog posts about my favorite art supplies for different age groups broken down into toddlers, preschoolers, and school age children.  

Quick list of my must haves:

• Liquid Food Coloring (we make sidewalk paint with it, color water, color rice, etc)
• Play-dough (store bought or homemade)
• Sidewalk Chalk (for open air art!)
• Paper! (all kinds = copy paper, cardstock, constructions, scrapbook, vellum, waxed paper, contractor’s paper, aluminum foil, tissue paper, sand paper)
• Scissors (regular and the kind that cut with wavy lines)
• Hole Punches (circles, flowers, etc)
• Glue (Elmer’s White School Glue, Glue Stick, Glue Gun, Aleene’s Craft Glue, Mod Podge)
• Tape (clear and masking – love colored masking tape from Oriental Trading supply, duct tape, electrical tape)
• Cardboard  and Recycling (boxes, toilet paper tubes, cereal boxes)
• Drawing Materials (Colored pencils, Crayola Twistables, Crayola Markers, Soy Crayon Rocks, Stockmar Wax crayons, Sharpies)
• Watercolors and Watercolor Paper  (Crayola and Dixon for younger kids, Yarka for mommy and older kids)
• Do-A-Dot paints or Bingo Markers
• Stickers and Office Labels
• Washable Paint and Brushes (acrylic craft paint and tempera paint from the craft store)

JEAN:  Will you tell us a bit about your summer art camps? What led you to start them?
 
MARYLEA:  I taught a series of summer art and craft camps last year in response to several friends asking me to offer kid’s classes and as a way to keep my own kids entertained while having fun at home with their friends. I did a month of little mommy and me camps for my youngest daughter and her friends since their preschool ends a month and a half before the big kids finish up their school year. Then, I taught a series of theme camps for school-age kids with themes like “Ocean Fun Camp”, “Rainbow Fun Camp”, “Exploring Great Artists”, “Backyard Fun”, and “Mom Would Never Let Me Do This At Home! Camp.”
I wrote up all of the lesson plans and activities from these camps and offer them as PDF lesson plans on my blog. They’re popular with classroom teachers, home-schooling parents, moms looking for a way to entertain their kiddos, camp counselors, and vacation bible school coordinators. They were so popular that people want to do them again this year but I’m having a hard time scheduling around travel and our own summer plans.

JEAN:  Where do your children’s interests lie and how do you encourage them and incorporate their current interests into current art activities? Are you ever surprised by what your kids come up with?
 
MARYLEA:  “E” is a miniature version of me and has always been “into” art. She is always drawing, painting, cutting, sewing, singing, and composing music on the piano. The music thing throws me for a loop because I can’t even read music but she’s a natural musician like her father, he’s teaching her how to play piano and guitar. She can sit down and play music by ear, she just figured out Fur Elise. Ummm…yeah, not from me! She also loves fashion design right now and is making beautiful fashion sketches so we put up some magnetic boards on her room wall for her to display her designs, I’m on the hunt for a small dress form for her to practice draping fabric on. She learned origami from some friends at school so I got her a book and some beautiful papers this Christmas. I try to say “yes” as much as possible when the girls come up with their own ideas, sometimes it would be easier to say no but I think experimenting, inventing, and creating are critical for their growth and development.
 
“C” also loves to create and is full of awesome ideas. One snowy morning at the bus stop this January, she came up with the idea to save pinecones to paint as “Easter Eggs” and she’s right, they are shaped like eggs. Throw on some pastel paint and they’re natural Easter eggs. I love the way kids can see something in a new way. She also likes to make artwork to hang in her Barbie house, collars for her stuffed kitty cats, and to make our own toys like a cardboard box puppet theater or a miniature bug house.

JEAN:  Anything else you’d like to add?
 
MARYLEA:  Thank you so much Jean for giving me the opportunity to talk to your Artful Parent readers today. I adore your blog and all of the fun projects you do with your girls! I so wish we lived closer to each other so the girls and I could come over for your art play dates. It makes me want to start my own art play group!

JEAN:  Thank you, MaryLea! We’d love it if you came over for art play dates!

***Giveaway***

Readers who leave a comment by Friday, April 29th at 12 midnight EST will be entered into a random drawing for MaryLea’s art lesson plans. The winner will receive three of your choice!

The random number generator picked #44 so Szkent wins the drawing for three of MaryLea's art lesson plans!

I appreciate that MaryLea has fully immersed her children into her art background. I love the idea of using a kiddy pool and paint covered balls to create works of art. What a great idea for a group project!

Easter photos

Happy Easter! I just downloaded photos from the day and thought I'd share a few of my favorites.

Greek Easter bread, made by Harry. The red egg is traditional. The blue one with melted crayon spirals, not so much.

A very excited Maia on Easter morning.

Hunting for eggs.

Maia was a whirlwind; Daphne a bit slower.

It was the first of several egg hunts of the day (Maia wanted a repeat and hid them for me to find, then her friend hid them for her, etc...).

Not this child's first taste of chocolate, but my goodness, that's a lot of chocolate for a little toddler! (We spirited it away after she nibbled on the ear.)

Maia wrote a spontaneous letter to the Easter bunny and asked me to put it in the mail. Hmm, what's the address?

And the best part? Maia's aunt and uncle were visiting with their little peanut. Here's a photo of the cousins.

Happy Easter!

(More!) spray painting fun

Maia and our friend Nikhil had a chance to reapply the spray paint color to the canvas walls the other day.

Here they are spraying in the same spot. I could say they were color mixing, but I think I may have overheard the words "kill the yellow." Ugh. But it was fun to see how they experimented and tried different ways of applying the spray paint.

They sprayed really close to the canvas (even touching it with the nozzles) as well as getting farther away for more of a splatter effect. So far the spray paint was no longer reaching the canvas, in fact, but then they moved closer again....

 

There was also some more drawing with sharpies. Daphne drew quite a bit, too, from my arms. I'm really loving these canvas panels! I'm wondering how you could use these yourselves this summer, but without rigging up the poles that we have. The canvas is just painters' drop cloths we bought at Home Depot. You could perhaps tie or drape one over a fence or nail it to the side of a house. Or spread it out on the ground. Or use it to make a teepee and then paint and draw on the teepee all summer. Or? Any other ideas? I think it has so much potential for outdoor art! And really, rigging up a couple of poles on the edge of a yard wouldn't be too hard.

Melted crayon Easter eggs with friends

We had so much fun last year with our melted crayon Easter eggs (and they were so beautiful!), that we made them again. This year we were able to share the process with good friends who have been visiting from out of state.

As before, we drew on the freshly boiled eggs with crayons. As the crayon touched the hot egg, it melted on smoothly, making vibrant designs.

Even Daphne enjoyed drawing on an egg (hers was warm, not hot).

Maia and Nikhil both really got into dying the eggs (of course!) as well.

I really love this technique! So fun to make and such an artful end result!

Thumbprint art three ways

Maia brought home a little book from school called Thumbprint Critters (She brings a new book home each night to read for homework). She wanted to try out some of the ideas after reading it, so we brought out the inkpads and paper.

First she used her thumb and fingerprints to draw figures and hearts.

Then she copied one of the critters from the book (a pig) by making a thumbprint and adding details with a pen.

Then Maia drew many of the critters from the book with a pen only (no thumbprints) and colored them in with markers.

I've never brought home any "how to draw" books for Maia so it was especially interesting to see how she interacted with this book. She gathered inspiration and information from it without getting hung up on doing things exactly as presented. I have to say I was impressed! (I realize, of course, that at a different stage, she might interact with a book like this differently.)

Have your kids used any "how to draw" type books or have you used any with your kids? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Drawing big

I gave Maia and her friends some sharpies the other day and let them draw on our canvas patio "walls". I said they could draw as big or as small as they wanted. They mostly drew big.

They made a lot of spirals, as on this artwork, as well as some stick figures.

While I liked the idea of having the canvases blank (or washable) so they can be reused over and over again, I also liked the idea of adding permanent line drawings over the course of the summer. I'm sure we'll be doing lots of more ephemeral art over the line drawings, including some more spray painting.

Christie Burnett of Childhood 101 on the value of art

Christie Burnett, Aussie mother of one, is a long-time early childhood educator and the founder of the popular blog, Childhood 101. Here she shares her thoughts on art, play spaces, and parenting.

***Note: Readers will have a chance to win a free copy of Christie’s new e-book, Art Not Craft: The Process of Learning Creatively, at the end of this interview.***

JEAN:  First, will you tell us a bit about becoming a parent after years in early childhood education?

CHRISTIE:  As an early childhood teacher I thought I knew a lot about young children - how they learnt, developed and formed relationships, etc, and I advised parents on all manner of things – children’s eating, sleeping and behaviour issues, to name a few of the more common ones. However, it wasn’t until I became a parent myself that I understood the strong influence of emotion and the attachment between parent and child that makes these areas of parenting so much more complicated. All my years of studying and teaching had definitely not prepared me for the overwhelming sense of love and protection which I felt for my child.

JEAN:  What made you start Childhood 101?

CHRISTIE:  As a new mum, I found that I missed having something for me as my work had always been such an important part of my life, and as a teacher I loved sharing my passion for quality play-based early education with families and other educators. My blog became what I did for me, an outlet for my thoughts and ideas and feelings and a new place for me to share my passion.  I love that whatever your parenting style or philosophy is, there are others around the world feeling, thinking, and sometimes even enjoying, a similar journey to you.

JEAN:  I love your daughter’s art space! Will you tell us a bit about setting it up and how it gets used?

CHRISTIE:  We are fortunate to have space in our home for a playroom and it is divided into areas - one corner is Immy’s art space, another her home corner/dramatic play area, a third is a reading space and finally there are two mat areas for various toys and activities. As an early childhood teacher, I believe that presenting aesthetically pleasing play spaces with simple organization helps children to feel secure in the knowledge of what happens in that place. This is especially important to creativity, as a child who feels safe and secure feels more freedom to take creative risks.

Within her art space, Immy has free access to different types of paper, drawing utensils, scissors, glue, collage materials and sculpting mediums, and has since she was a little over two years of age. I keep the paints and some glues in a different space, mainly because of storage restraints but Immy is always free to ask for them.

JEAN:  What are your favorite creative activities to do with your daughter?

CHRISTIE:  Immy would probably choose anything to do with paint and her hands :) Sculpting with clay, plasticine and dough is very popular at the moment and I enjoy watching the learning taking place through the additional challenge that working with 3 dimensional art materials provides - there is a whole heap of problem solving and perseverance hiding in a ball of clay or a stack of recyclables and a roll of tape.

 

JEAN:  I’m excited to hear about your new e-book, Art not Craft – The Process of Learning Creatively! What are you hoping parents will take away from it?

CHRISTIE: I often feel that adults place less value on children’s art activities then they do on other types of learning activities. This is especially true of young children whose art making attempts are about enjoying the experience of creating rather than producing a recognizable image or object. I hope that Art Not Craft helps parents to better appreciate the value of art making to a child’s thinking, their learning across all developmental areas, and as an important vehicle for a child to express both their knowledge and feelings of the world. For example, I recently posted on the blog about the important role that art making played in helping Immy to work through the overwhelming emotions which she experienced during our first trip to the cinema. Drawing and painting materials have helped her to make sense of what she saw, heard and felt and now instead of feeling frightened, she is asking to go again!

Through Art Not Craft, I also want to reassure parents that helping children to express themselves through art materials is not difficult and the ebook provides suggestions for the practicalities of art making – simple ways of minimizing mess, of engaging and involving all children – even those who do not show interest in art making, advice for choosing art projects to suit your child and tips for creating an art area at home, and choosing and organizing art materials.

JEAN: Thank you, Christie! I love what you say about offering attractive and defined play spaces to help children feel confident about what happens in that space. I hadn’t considered it in quite that way, but really like that explanation.

 

***GIVEAWAY***

 Readers who leave a comment to this interview by 12 midnight EST on Thursday, April 21^st, will be entered into a random drawing for a free copy of Christie’s new e-book, Art Not Craft: The Process of Learning Creatively.

The random number generator picked #52 so Melissa wins the copy of  Christie's e-book. Congrats!

I love that little work space! We recently bought a new table for our kitchen so that our old table could be exclusively used as an art table. It's made a huge difference for us to have a dedicated space. The e-book sounds great, thanks for the chance! I'm off to check out your blog, Christie!

Easter past - a round up of fun Easter activities

Easter eggs + melted crayon drawings (These were awesome! We're going to make them again this year.)

Easter egg suncatchers with contact paper and colored tissue paper. There's also a recipe for cute little nest cookies here.

Bleeding tissue paper Easter eggs and Easter egg art.

and Easter egg rocks, because we can't get enough of painting rocks.

Do you have any favorite Easter craft ideas (your own or some you've found around the web) to share? We're looking for activities to try this coming week...