paint cut paste

who knew that when novi found the regular old pencil i put in her colored pencil cup, a new favorite medium would be born?

she’s been keeping it simple over here for a coupla days now… just doing basic line drawings with a pencil and some scrap paper i keep in a bin on her art desk.

while novi draws, she always narrates what is going on in the picture and what the characters are saying, in different voices and such.it’s fascinating to watch.

i will share a few (of the stack that’s collecting) of her little scenes – so fun!

festival with bounce-house, daddy with cotton candy, novi with balloons, and mommy with her camera (what else would i have?)

walrus jumping rope while a bird brings her (easter) eggs to a nest

novi feeding our cats their dinner bowls, but the cats are mad (see wagging tail) because a yeti has caught a person in a lasso

L to R: bird with a present, ant, spider climbing tree trunk to his web, bee, butterfly, flowers

she even made a little birthday card for our cat, bean, who turned 9 on sunday… just one day before novi turned 3.5 years old this past monday, the 26th – (yes, those half-birthdays are a big deal, right?)

she wrote the message and drew a picture of herself playing with bean with the laser cat toy

the other night she began to add some color to a few line drawings she did, using her crayons. i am really into this artistic development going on over here!

our cat, bean, giving iridessa (the light-talent fairy) a rainbow tube

so for this one, i’m willing to bet you’ve got all the materials you need!

i always try to follow novi’s lead when it comes to the art projects we do around here. her natural inclination lately has been toward the realm of still life drawing.

the other day she picked up a pen and drew on the back of a cardboard notepad, and then came and showed it to me. she said, “these are all of the tummy-symbols of the care bears. it’s so much fun to draw what i’m looking at!”

love-a-lot bear wasn't available for the photo shoot. he might be busy under the couch.

so, of course, the following day momma whipped up a pretty bowl of fruit for novi to draw — i mean, why not start out in a classic way? the little one was thrilled!

she wanted to draw a few objects by themselves, as well.

the apple

the tomato

a few tomatoes as a thank you to our neighbors who brought us some from their yard

next, novi said she wanted to draw “a different bowl of fruit that i’m thinking of in my head.”

the bowl of fruit novi pictured in her head

masterpieces!

we had such a fun morning! so sweet and quiet to draw together…

(so quiet that even i got in on the action a wee bit…)

when following novi’s lead and interests, it is so obvious that she is a drawing machine… and not only does she love to draw, but her drawings are all about storytelling. she creates stories as she draws and tells them to herself and to me.

one of the art therapy techniques i have used with clients (of all ages) came to mind the other day when watching novi engage me in her drawing — it’s called dialog drawing (or dialogue drawing for my friends in the uk ) the idea is that two people will have a visual conversation by taking turns drawing on one page. this can be done by one person making a mark (a line, dot, curve,) then another making a mark, and so on back and forth until a picture develops. little ones don’t always have the patience for the slow unfolding of mark-making, so it’s a good idea to take turns making one “thing” at a time. you can say, “okay, let’s take turns! you draw something on the page. then it’ll be my turn to draw something on the page, then your turn. we’ll take turns going back and forth until we feel like our picture is finished.”

today we got out a large sheet of drawing paper – i’d recommend at least a 17×20 white page for this exercise. working large is great when two (or more – get all of your kids involved!) people are using it as their canvas. we used crayons, primarily, but i made colored pencils available. markers or any other dry media would work.

we began by setting some ground rules. make up your own. if you know your kid gets upset when someone’s marks touch or add to his/her work, then make a rule that the marks can’t touch each other… our rules were loose. they were just that she’d draw one object, then i’d draw one object, etc. you can create a rule of “no talking” so that it’s a strict visual conversation, but we chatted when we made ours. our first picture began with novi drawing a self-image and a ball (which i later colored in.) on my first turn, i drew myself playing ball with her. it is important to remember to use your child’s artistic “handwriting” or visual language when doing this, so as to meet them where they are and non-verbally communicate that they are being seen and witnessed. more on these ideas here.

you can see how our first images of ourselves and a ball started an entire scene

not only is this a good exercise in patience and turn-taking, but it also helps to develop visual language, and it really allows you to give your child your very focused attention, playing an art game where the content is always fresh and new.

novi LOVED making the dialog drawing together! after our first scene, which ended up being a beach picture, she said, “let’s do another one! but this one can’t be on a beach! now, you go first!”

drawing 1: the beach scene

so we did another…

drawing 2: the park scene

we spent over an hour doing these pictures and creating a story and talking with each other about it.

i loved watching how our ideas bounced off of one another. sometimes mine came first…

…sometimes hers did.

it was a really fun and connected morning art activity for us – try it!

this post is basically an ode to a material i have come to love – the crayola true to life series of dry media. no, they don’t pay me for this (but they totally should! right?! come on, someone send us some art materials to review…)

seriously, their crayons and colored pencils make the art look so cool! novi came home from preschool one day with the fish below and asked, “can we get some swirly crayons for home?” um, yeah!

so we did and she went to town in her coloring books making all sorts of rainbowy creatures.

novi says, "the bottom butterfly is sad because she's just purple."

wait, what you do mean it's not a sno-cone fight?

then she got her hands on some the true to life colored pencils, and after a trip to the local yeti museum (yep, she’s a fan) she got to work coloring a tree-hugging yeti.

the yeti is coming to life…

i mean, does this bigfoot look real or what? someone call the tabloids!

summer officially begins today, the summer solstice. what better way to ring in the season than to brainstorm with your little one(s) about all of the fun things you can do together in these beautiful, expansive months ahead?

when i saw this idea for summer fun cards on teach mama, i knew that novi would be really into it. she used index cards, but i thought i’d check our stash of scrap papers to make these. then i realized i had a pack of blank index cards in our stash already, so it was kismet. white cardstock is good for illustrating, though you could do this with any papers you have around (think: brown paper grocery bags, used gift wrap, etc.)

novi and i thought of all of the fun summery things we’d like to do together when the weather is warm and the days are long and there’s no preschool in session. i wrote these things on the cards in marker. then i passed them to novi to illustrate any way she’d like, with some dry media: markers, crayons, and colored pencils.

here are a few of the finished ones that novi drew. i drew on a few of the cards (not pictured below), as well… we had TONS! novi loved learning about what illustration means by doing this project.

then i used a hole punch to make holes in the cards, and we strung our cards on colorful yarn. we hung them in novi’s playroom….

…where we can be reminded of all of the potential…

that these long summer days hold.

happy summer! have a blessed solstice!

we’ve been having fun preparing for father’s day over here…

novi made some papa portrait cards for her dad and grandfathers.

here are her portraits. (yep, she essentially has 4 grandfathers. modern families.)

we also turned a really cool magnadoodle image of hers…

into a great travel coffee mug for her dad on cafepress.com! (i love this idea of using your child’s art on everyday products. sure beats logos and advertising for other companies!)

novi painted a wooden picture frame for her dad at preschool a couple of weeks ago, complete with a photo taken by her teacher.

we added the frame and the mug to a gift basket with lots of his favorite goodies.

one of novi’s traditions is to make mom’s day and dad’s day signs… last year in 2009, her sign looked like this:

mom's writing, novi's scribbles

but this year, she was able to write and illustrate her own sign – hooray!

happy father’s day to all the dads, granddads, godfathers, uncles, and all of the amazing men who love & support our children!