Happy Thanksgiving! A couple days late, I know, but it's the thought that counts, right?
What a week it's been! Friends visiting from out of town (wonderful!). Kiddo #2 sick (not so great). Cooking a Thanksgiving feast (love it!). Sick in bed myself (ugh). Eating pumpkin pie for breakfast (yum). Making a list of all the ways I'm going to keep myself and my family healthy the rest of the season (sadly, does not include eating pie for breakfast). Launching The Artful Winter eBook (exciting!). Breaking down and buying a neti pot (not as weird as I thought it would be). And admiring all the drawings my kids have been making lately—turkeys, mustachioed frenchmen, hurricanes, rainbows, and Christmas trees (& you know how I feel about that!).
For this post, I thought I'd share some of the drawing that's been happening around our home lately.
Not surprisingly, Maia has been drawing quite a few turkeys lately. She has two fallback "templates" to use when she does.* The first, on the left is her frontal view turkey, with the big circle body and radiating tail feathers. On the right is her side view turkey using a loose hand drawing as the base.
*Like many children, Maia often draws things the same way over and over, both for comfort and confidence as well as a way of learning and incorporating it into her repertoire.
That chalk drawing is made on a newly-painted door in our office, by the way. I've been (slowly) redecorating the office. I painted the walls aqua, added a fun orange accent wall, and painted the closet door with chalkboard paint. Almost as soon as the door was up, and before I had a chance to write my own lists and ideas as intended, I came into the room to find it covered with these drawings by Maia and her friend Marlise. Perhaps I can let the kids take over the bottom portion of the door and reserve the top half for my own use...
Maia has been drawing her mustachioed Frenchmen all the time and everwhere (including on the steamy bathroom mirror and the frosty window of the storm door...). I'm not sure what's up with the long mustaches and berets, but I'm thinking she initially learned something similar at school, either in art class or from a friend. Whenever I ask her, she just starts saying "bonjour madame" and acting silly.
Daphne has been drawing A LOT. She always requests the rock crayons and almost always uses the red one exclusively. Our fridge is covered with her abstract red drawings of circles, scribbles, and lines ("bandaids"). She's drawn the occasional minimalist face, but still usually draws abstractly.
The image on the lower left is one of her several blueberry "drawings." She loves to eat frozen blueberries, and out of the blue one day, asked for a piece of paper while she was eating them. She covered the paper with blueberry prints and has done so each time she has eaten frozen blueberries since.
Maia, being the helpful big sister that she is, occasionaly takes it upon herself to teach Daphne something she thinks is important for her to know. Drawing rainbows was apparently up there on the list.
While Maia usually drawings using traditional art supplies, I let her draw on my iPad as well sometimes. The app we use and like is Art Set. You can use any art material, any color and create many different ways. It's not a substitute for holding a pencil in your hand and working on real paper, but it's an interesting alternative. Here Maia drew a hurricane (this was the week of Hurricane Sandy).
And lastly, we've entered the season for drawings of Christmas trees, Santa Claus, elves, and such...
What are your kids drawing these days?
