paint cut paste

this is a little post so that i can capture and share with my family (and you all!) a cute little book that N made for her great-grandmother (and my grandmother,) nana. my nana turns 91 today, and she got a beautiful book (and card) in the mail from my little one. here it is, page by page…

cover page

N decided on the first message of the book: “step outside and breathe” with a “rainbow-checkered earth picture.”

page 1

then an activity she and nana like to do together:

page 2

nana lives on a beach, which is one of N’s favorite locations, of course, so she drew this:

page 3

when i asked N what her favorite memories of thoughts of nana are, she said she likes how they’re always holding hands when they walk together, and she drew this next and thought of her own caption for it – “sharing family love.”

page 4

then she remembered one of nana’s favorite things on earth — candy! my nana is legendary for her “candy drawer!”

page 5

the last image in the book is a birthday cake for the birthday girl, nana:

page 6 (that's a 91 over there on the right, for her age)

on the back, N drew a picture of herself for an author page, along with her name at the top (which i’ve blocked out for privacy/safety.)

back cover

easy construction: we punched 3 holes in the folded papers and threaded it with yarn of N’s choice and finished with a bow.

i don’t know about you, but i’d be THRILLED to get a book like this for my birthday! handmade gifts are just so special – what types of gifts do your kids create for grandparents?

it’s been a while since we’ve formally done still-life art, and given N’s recent interest in drawing what she sees, as she sees it, i thought we’d expand this into a different medium: watercolors.

on a chilly august morning (yep, we have those here in the bay area) we went outside after breakfast and found a lovely latana flower in the yard. the pink, orange, and yellow little blooms just remind me of faerie magic – such sweet flowers! we brought our watercolor paints (and watercolor pencils – i heart these!) outside, along with our hoodies, and settled into paint.

the difference here is that i actually painted my own art alongside N this time. i generally don’t make art with her because i am hoping that all of her marks are authentic and uninfluenced. when i do, i make my marks in her “handwriting” so to speak, as i discuss in this article. i’ve never shown her how to draw any of the things she draws. this time though, N set the ground rules: “we can’t look at each others’ paintings until they’re all finished!” and lemme tell ya – she was serious about this! i had to pretend i was photographing just the actual vase to take some of these pictures.

we spent the time quietly talking, discussing how we could each see different subtle colors in each tiny flower. we talked about she could see things from her angle that i couldn’t see from mine, so our paintings would ultimately look different.

here is N’s lovely creation — she so enjoyed using the watercolor pencils before she painted to outline her image, and then she loved how “chalky” they felt after she applied them to the wet paint to add in details at the end.

we sat our paintings up behind the actual vase of flowers during lunch time and continued to discuss (while rotating the vase) who could see which flowers from where we were sitting. N’s piece now resides on her art gallery wall in her bedroom., though i will be finding a frame for this masterpiece soon!

do you create art alongside your child(ren)?

aside from the art projects we do around here, N spends anywhere from 1-3 hours per day drawing. this month, i’ve noticed a few new additions to her artistic development, and i wanted to share some of my favorite creations from july with you all. (but gosh, it’s hard to choose!) you can click on any image below to open the larger sized version of it to look more closely.

i am intrigued by how parts of the faces are covered in this image, and how the features are continued around the white parts:

"mascots"

while we’re on the topic of parts being covered, the image below shows foxes in different spots, and parts of their bodies are hidden by trees and clouds:

"how many foxes do you see here?"

N has enjoyed drawing tables and chairs for the past couple of years – i just love this one:

"the cafe"

whimsical animals are always a fav… she’s really into outlining everything now in pencil or black and then coloring it in:

"animal friends"

while we’re on the animal topic, the lucky girl in this image has a merry-go-round in her front yard:

"merry-go-round"

loving this dude so much that i want him on a t-shirt:

"weird guy"

inspired by the horses on the beach on our vacation:

"magical horses"

not only do i love how much is going on in the picture below, but N’s use of shadows under the figures is a new thing. (she says the gray marks under the ground line are shadows of the figures above them.) the zig-zag-like squiggles near the figures’ mouths mean that they’re talking. hee hee.

"playtime"

the image below is about finding the silly things happening on the playground… yes, the girl in the upper right is naked and peeing on the bounce house.

"how many silly things do you see in this picture?"

another nude “with a cool arrow design on her” – tee hee:

"naked girl"

"surfers"

"squirrel with his dinner"

"outer space"

and one last one i just love…

"home"

most of our days consist of this: N chilling at her art desk with her crayons and pencils just cranking out the pictures, telling stories about them while she draws. i LOVE these parts of the day. i know she is fully in the flow and engaged in what she calls “play drawing.” i enjoy seeing the world through her perspective in her art, as all of her images are completely authentic to her eye since i’ve never taught her how to draw anything. thank you for letting me share these with you, dear readers. in all honesty, sometimes i wonder how i get any other art activities up on this blog.

aaand happy half-birthday to N, who turned 4.5 this week! thanks for all who chimed in on my facebook page about celebrating half-birthdays in your home – glad we’re not alone!

we go through art paper around here like nobody’s business, which you may have remembered from the STACK in this post from april. i’ve tried to cut it into smaller pieces. i’ve tried to get N to use the backs of sheets at times. still, this prolific artist just HAS to produce, and i’m totally in support of that! i may have stumbled upon a way to curb the paper usage and create a new format for my little artist.

if you watched this video i posted on facebook a while back, you’ll notice how N’s illustrations (or “play drawing” as she calls it) is all about the development and unfolding of a story. about a week ago, we got to a point where N used the front and back of at least 8 sheets of paper (16 drawings) to show frames of the same story progressing. then she started drawing her own boxes to write a story in, like this one:

naturally, i ran to my computer, drew up some story frame boxes as comic strips, and hit print. easy enough. so easy. i presented them to this 4-year-old illustrator, and she knew just what to do with them.

that day (sunday, june 5) she created several comic strips with elaborate stories. this was the first one – about a bird’s adventure.

my favorite frame in this one is when “the momma bird is in her house, drinking her hot cocoa and peacefully looking out at the moon. she didn’t even notice the tv was on because the moon was so beautiful.” haha.

more stories unfolded that day…

once when she was up in her room drawing and ran out of “box paper” she did this on the back of one of the pages:

N narrated them afterwards, walking us through them frame by frame. so fascinating!

we are loving this format over here this week — and i’m sure the trees will thank us!

see you in the funny papers!

i always try to follow N’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 N 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, N said she wanted to draw “a different bowl of fruit that i’m thinking of in my head.”

the bowl of fruit N 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 N’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 N 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 N 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.

N 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! N 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.

N 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.

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