paint cut paste

novi was on my lap while i was at the computer yesterday. (typical.) i was doing a google search for a random rug i’m trying to find that’s been out of stock for far too long to find it. [humph.] anyway, kandinsky’s circle painting happened to come up in the search, and novi was attracted to it immediately when she saw it. “ooooh, let’s make that!” she said.

wassily kandinsky, colour study: squares with concentric circles

to begin, i used a thick, black sharpie to draw circles onto a piece of thick drawing paper (we we’re out of watercolor paper) and then i gridded them off into boxes. this gave novi some framework in which to paint, though it isn’t a necessary step. in hindsight, it would have been awesome to use watersoluble crayons (easily one of my favorite media ev-ar!!!) or watercolor pencils for these guidelines. even using pastels or crayons would be cool because they’re colorful and resist the watercolors.

i offered her pans of watercolors, matte and metallic, just for fun. i showed her how to make concentric circles with the brush, and she was off and running with it on her own. (oooh, six mandalas…)

after she finished the first piece, she wanted to draw her own circles with the sharpie and paint them in, which she did.

this one reminds me of murano glass.

while she was doing that, i drew some concentric circles with the marker on another page. after she finished painting, she said she wanted to color those with crayons.

she was so proud of the resulting pieces!

such lovely bubbles of mixed-media color – she loved our pollock painting, and here’s another masterpiece a la the late greats.

all of our days are artful… but not every day includes an “art activity” to share with you, per se. here are some of the creative and lovely things that have been happening around our house thus far this week that are worth a visual share…

chalk drawing al fresco

mushroom spotting

portraits in frames

momma's inked rocks in process

impromptu pen drawing on the grocery list paper

gathering flowers & herbs in the backyard (with matching pedis a la momma)

coloring mandalas

"hey mommy, i made a bear out of rocks!"

chillin' with a ladybug

flowers & the potential of unpainted wood

take time to notice the small things & happy creating!

it has been one year today since i began this blog on july 1, 2009*. whoo hoo! in the past year, we’ve published over 140 entries to this blog… that’s a lotta art made! it warms my heart that we have just reached 850 followers on facebook who are all getting artsy with their little ones!

to celebrate, i wanted to post a little round-up of just a few of my favorite art activities that novi and i have experimented with over the past year… it is so hard to choose, but all of these below are fun to do in these warmer months, so i hope these flashbacks spark ideas for you all now. here goes:

color hunt (so fun with even the littlest ones!)

shaving-cream marbled paper

kool-aid painting (hey, it’s better than drinking the stuff!)

shrinky dink garden tags

watercolored stationery

baked clay garland

(these are hearts, but you can do this any time of year with any shaped cookie cutter… perhaps flowers, butterflies, suns, and birds for summer??)

nature impressions

nest zest orbs

handprint flower tote bags

shell garland

strawberry basket weaving

thank you for following us and keeping us inspired all year long! here’s to many more years of making art to come!

*sure, some of the posts date back to march 2009, when we did a few projects that i wanted to include in the blog, so i pre-dated them so readers could use dates to calculate novi’s age at the time of creation based on her january 2007 birthday.

jean van’t hul, the writer of one of my most favorite artsy blogs, the artful parent, interviewed little ol’ me! i am so honored to be featured on her blog, and for the opportunity to discuss art making from my perspective as an art therapist.

check out the interview here, and be sure to leave a comment just under the interview on the artful parent, before midnight EST june 4th to be entered for a chance to win a set of 3 nesting orb kits made by yours truly.

just wanted to post a quick little artsy update to show where some of our art projects have been integrated into our lives… you can click the links throughout to see the post noting how and when we did each project.

you may recall that for mothers’ day this year, we created handmade blooming paper for the cards. well, novi’s 90 year old greatgrandmother (my nana) sent us a photo of her planting her seed paper.

and gwee (novi’s grandmother/my mom) sent us a photo of her first sprout when it happened. (word still out on craig’s mom’s seed paper. we’ll have to get back to ya on that… hey, grandma? how’s it sprouting?)

gwee's first sprout & the plant today

speaking of grandmothers, gwee’s visit is almost here, and we know that by cutting our links off of our countdown chain each night after dinner. novi has acquired some mad scissor skills through this project. hooray!

11 more days!

speaking of plant growth, novi’s cosmos are growing in her fancy flowerpot! no flowers yet, but we’re waiting…

the medicine wand and natural imprints grace our den table along with some smooth stones we found at pescadero beach last month.

novi still plays with her pet rocks and blarney stones on a regular basis. they live in her bedroom.

and she rocks the sandtray every coupla days. i’m sure it’ll see even more action when the weather warms.

the art gallery in novi’s bedroom is alive and well… and expanding!

sadly, what is NOT alive and well is our terrarium. the plants rotted from overwatering. i opened the lid to get some moisture out, but it was too late. it is so stinky now that i’ve been avoiding cleaning it out, so it’s been sitting outside as a visual reminder to dump and scrub it, but alas, i have not after this long, and i may end up on the tv show, hoarders. i just don’t have a green thumb, but i am trying again and again.

hope that ladybug has noseplugs!

but there are expansions happening over here: like my newfound obsession with not throwing the toilet paper and paper towel rolls into the recycling bin, like ever (again, hoarders?) and instead creating cardboard leaves and petals.

and now we’re making larger wall creations for the playroom. (this one still needs to grow – it’s a work in progress)

(updated: a month later)

novi is coloring in her coloring books every single day, for maybe 1.5-2 hours per day. i’m so not complaining because i can cook dinner and she has developed some meticulous coloring skills.

and the magnadoodling just does not quit around here.

"mommy in a blue dress she wore to a wedding and novi in a dress that is blowing in the wind with leaves blowing in the wind"

somehow we still haven’t finished our lemonade from last week yet. (note to self. next time, use less sugar! i feel like i’m giving myself and everyone else diabetes over here! i’ve been diluting each glass of it.)

i’m happy to note that creativity is contageous: novi’s dad, craig, gets creative with novi’s food, just like i do when i bento and make cute breakfasts and lunches.

daddy's egg mango lion!

on a side note: my daily photoblog project with my fellow fotog friend, katie, is still ticking and clicking away. on there you will find that katie received one of our nest zest nesting orbs as a birthday gift, and the birdies have been visiting hers in colorado and pimping their homes! hooray!

photo courtesy of katie day weisberger

which other posts might you want updates on? i’m always happy to share how things are turning out around here…

novi’s friend is soon having a mermaid pool party for her fourth birthday, and novi is very psyched about this theme! when we were pondering artsy gifts to make for her kindred spirit artist friend, i remembered a sweet idea i’d seen long ago on pink & green mama — clothes pin mermaids!

this post is likely a gift spoiler (sorry in advance to the birthday girl’s parents,) but i’m banking on the fact that the little mermaid can’t read blogs quite yet.

some parts of this craft aren’t super kid-friendly… for example, i began by using my woodburning tool (hot) to create faces and belly buttons on some wooden doll pin clothes pins while novi was napping.

i also cut tail shapes out of craft foam.

then i set materials up so novi could paint the mermaids when she woke up.

novi painted the bottom part of each one with various colors to match the foam tails.

the next part was not kid-friendly either, nor was it momma-friendly. i burnt three of my fingers while hot glueing craft foam (cut into tail shapes) to the slit in each wooden pin. i cut little bikini tops out of felt and novi helped to glue these to each mermaid.

we used some yarn for hair. you could use that doll hair you find in the craft store, but i just used yarn we had around the house. unfortunately, i didn’t have a huge selection of hair colors, so we made them all blonde. my blonde girl was cool with this, and the birthday mermaid is blonde, as well, so for these purposes, it works out.

a few will swim in the playsilk moat around novi’s fairy treehouse in our playroom.

the rest of these aquatic cuties will make a great addition to the gift package we bring to the mermaid pool party next weekend. now we just cross our fingers for pool party weather to make its way to the bay!