paint cut paste

our hearts go out to all of our east coast friends who have been dealing with hurricane irene and her aftermath. in our pre-cali stomping grounds of richmond, va, much of the beloved city’s beloved residents have been without power for days and huge trees fell and took out homes, cars, playhouses, etc. the photo below is one that my dear friend in richmond took of a fallen tree in her yard.

photo by amy howarth

this is the scene in many of my friends’ yards right now, and the work of cutting up the trunks and branches has begun. while these trees make for fine firewood for the winter, surely some little parts of these hurricane spoils could be repurposed into lovely branch art, yes?

photo by amy howarth

coincidentally i’ve been drooling over some tree-themed pins in the past few months (cannot. curb. pinterest. addiction.) and it seems that, while hurricanes are often tragic and never desirable, mother nature has left behind some art materials in my friends’ yards. so i’ve decided to share some ideas for how to make art out of this bad situation, for those of you who may have a lot of wood lying around. and a saw. (gosh, i want a saw.)

if you click on the images below, they will take you to the source of the image.

building blocks - i SO want these!

wall art (many other branchy ideas at this link, too)

love these gift tags - or stamp any image onto them & glue a magnet to the back!

i'm seriously making these in the fall (i heart mini-eco!)

weaving between the branches

how stylie are these hooks?

great table!

lovely beads

so beautiful above the bed

earthy candle holders

when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

when hurricanes give you fallen trees, make branch art!

in my practice as an art therapist, one area of emphasis is on supporting expectant and new mommas. one of the best pieces of my training in art as ritual during this rite of passage was not only my graduate studies or my own pregnancy/momming experience, but also the pregnancies of my dearest art therapist friends with whom i graduated. as you’ve seen before on my blog, to mark this time as sacred, we hold mother’s blessing ceremonies for one another.

me with kindred spirits from my art therapy program -- momma-to-be in the center. sept 2009.

i’ve shared a bit about one of the art rituals from my own blessing ceremony these friends held for me, and i’ll blog more about it another time…  but today i wanted to share a beautiful and artful blessing idea from one of my dearest friend’s blessing in autumn of 2009, where a group of women gathered (her closest friends and family) to celebrate the new life on the way.

an art table is as essential as the food table at these gatherings - food for the soul!

one of my fellow art therapist friends led the group in a guided visualization about what they wished for the expectant family. she asked us all to notice the images that came to us — the setting, colors, lines, shapes, textures. each person in attendance was then given a piece of watercolor paper, a pallette of watercolor paints, and a selection of brushes. while beautiful music played, each person found a spot in the room where they could work on their piece.

everyone was assured that no artistic expertise or experience was necessary. each of us was asked to just paint the colors and impressions we had, regardless of whether it is abstract or the image of something. we also were asked not to become attached to the image, as it would be torn up to create a larger piece later. (this was very freeing for most of those who might not have been as comfortable making art.)

big-sister-to-be (age 2 here) even got in on the action, as her image is a key piece in the energy of the final product.

after the art was completed, we sat in a circle with the mom-to-be in the middle, and we each told her what we wished for her. the dad-to-be had created a piece on his own, in advance, which we showed to the expectant mom at the blessing. it was so fascinating that their pieces had such resonance!

mom's art on left; dad's art on right

the next day, the five of us you see pictured up there gathered around a kitchen table for tea, coffee, and paper weaving.

we tore the watercolor pages into strips that were one inch wide, along the longer side of the watercolor paper. we prefer tearing the pages along a ruler to cutting them — this way you get that lovely raw edge.

we chose strips from each of the paintings that were most appealing to the mom-to-be, making sure each person’s art was represented in the final piece.

the five of us wove the strips together, trying different configurations out, and eventually arriving at the final piece.

two months after this blessing ceremony, my friend welcomed her second child, a beautiful boy, into her family (who is now almost two!) this awesome piece of art, holding all of the love and supportive energy of his family, is hanging above his bed.

i’m a big fan of inspiration boards. i love looking at the ones that geninne and jean post on their blogs… and gosh, pinterest is just one big ol’ inspiration board, isn’t it? i’ve put up my own boards in the past (dec 2009 board seen below) but i don’t have one going at the moment.

then i figured that my little artist in residence is actually producing more work than anyone here, so we might need to revamp the board that is on the wall in front of the art desk she uses in our kitchen. she has one of those magnetic white boards from michael’s mounted on the wall. here’s what it has been looking like for months now, unattended.

N doesn’t need to look at her letter magnets while writing at this point, and the board needed some overall TLC, so we removed everything from it. then N selected magnets she has made over the year. then she chose works of art and various images that inspire her.

what i love is that N said that her own art inspires her art more than any other images, so she selected her own works to post.

do you have an inspiration board for yourself? for your children?

(if so, share a link to it or a photo of it on my facebook wall)

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)?

ever since i saw this brilliant post on wise craft two years ago, i’ve totally wanted to make our own everyday placemats! i finally got around to it last week!

i don’t know about your home, but we really benefit from having some sort of wipeable, plastic placemat on the table at mealtimes. we use cloth napkins everyday and when we entertain, we use cloth placemats, but for everyday use, cloth placemats just don’t cut it. while i realize i could achieve this look (and you could too) by laminating beautiful cardstock or paper art work, i wanted the heft of cloth layers for our placemats.

where did those pretty patterns up there come from? well lately, i’ve been OB-sessed with spoonflower, so i could not resist (though i tried) picking a few patterns from their web site to use for ours. the visuals are important to me, especially for something we’ll see so often and will likely be burned in N’s brain if we use them for years of her childhood. because we are very seasonally oriented in our home (from our seasonal altar to food to centerpieces to decor,) i decided to choose one fabric for each season. i made eight placemats total: four with spring on one side, summer on the other. then four with autumn on one side, winter on the other. i got the spring fabric from etsy (i was seeking a hip snail print, as snails are a huge sign of spring here in our backyard, as they SWARM it all season long) and the other three seasons’ fabric was carefully chosen from spoonflower to also be personal to our family in some way.

when the fabric arrived, i was thrilled to begin! (a project with beautiful fabric that requires NO SEWING? this is my kinda creation!)

(i didn't need the pins. they just made the pic cute & were in the box with my fabric scissors.)

i followed the instructions on wisecraft: i began by cutting four 11″ x 17″ rectangles out of each fabric. (i freaked about the measurements here being exact and lining up because i didn’t read ahead in the instructions, but you don’t need to freak at this part. there is a time later when you’ll trim them down again.) i must have looked stressed during this part of the project because N kept rubbing my back and saying, “i like the way you’re concentrating here. good, good, you got it, good.”

then i ironed each rectangle of fabric. (first time i’ve used my ironing board in N’s life – she had to ask what it was. sad, right? uh, i like to tell myself that we mostly wear comfy knitwear and it’s not needed.) after they were wrinkle-free, i used thermoweb heatnbond lite to adhere spring to summer and fall to winter. wisecraft gives a thorough explanation of this process on her blog here.

after they were bonded, right sides of fabric facing out, i trimmed them down to 10.25″ by 16.25″ each. (aaaah, all lined up!)

next i did a little research on the laminating process. i found a teacher supply store locally that only charged 65 cents to laminate something that is 11×17 – score… or so i thought. BUT when we visited the store, i learned that the laminate was very thin and the placemats would still be flimsy like the cloth. so, i decided to go to fedex/kinkos (as wisecraft recommended – no need to try to reinvent the wheel to save a few bucks here.) i found it very user-friendly.

even though each placemat cost $4.50 to laminate at that size, we went this route considering the fabric investment i’d already made. they offer a thick plastic sleeve to put the cloth into. after it’s centered in the sleeve, just run it through the laminating machine that seals it together with heat. i feel like they’ll hold up for years!

about an hour after we laminated them, they were on our table and dinner was served — summer style!

even though this was a mom-made project, i have to say that N was with me every step of the way and takes immense pride in telling everyone “can you believe that WE made these placemats ourselves?!”

one of my favorite art media combos is sharpies and watercolors. i just love the definition the sharpie provides, and how it just won’t budge with the watercolor. something about that satisfies me greatly. apparently it’s hereditary.

last year i created (and framed – all in one day! it was a miracle) some bird pictures for above our bed in the master bedroom. at least once a month, N comments on how she’d like to do the same sort of painting for her own room – “framed!”

sure, she’s used sharpies and watercolors together before, supervised.  we’ve framed her paintings in her room before. but this time (and this painting was made about three weeks ago) she had a vision, so i supported the execution, of course.

with beautiful watercolor stock, my black sharpie, and a palette of watercolors, she began her process.

she was excited about having used “mommy’s special marker” for this drawing.

"this is about a girl who loves her cat"

time to apply the color.

N is so smitten with the watercolor palette, like her momma.

then came the exciting part — framing it for N’s bedroom. she’s sooo proud!

hooray for art boosting kids’ self-esteem! gotta love that side effect that creating produces!

recently i blogged about the sketchbook project that i participated in through arthouse coop for the 2011 tour… or more accurately that N and i participated in, as she was indeed a major contributor to that sketchbook. i wanted to report some recent happenings about the project: 1) our book has finally been digitized for online viewing here and 2) the sketchbook project tour was just in san francisco, so we got to visit our book, and the books of some of our friends!

N was quite excited to go to the gallery to visit her art work, as was i! we received very special and official “participating artist” stickers to wear at the show. (stickers are very important, you see.)

the scene was really cool – stacks of sketchbooks and library cards to check them out…

and a loungy area where we could peruse the books of art.

N was very inspired by all of the work she was seeing, and asked to have her crayons and drawing pad, so she began to create right there in the gallery.

"check out this mandala, mommy!"

i highly recommend getting in on the action with the sketchbook project’s 2012 tour — sign up now. and check out the 2011 tour if it comes to a town near you where you can visit our book in person (and so many other totally amazing works!) or browse online.