paint cut paste

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.

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!

friday N came home from preschool very excited to show me how she “wrote two books!” at school.

the teacher had pre-stapled several different blank “books” together and left them out for the kids to fill. as simple as this is, N LOVED the idea.

she delighted in telling me the mystery story of a bear who woke up with jelly on his face. (top photo)

and the story of a bear’s adventure on a hill.

the landing

even though i’ve given N her own little sketchbooks and whatnot, i just might have to staple some blank scrap paper together to bring on an upcoming flight so she can create her own travel story.

we are honored to partake in tinkerlab’s one year anniversary cardboard box challenge, alongside so many amazing bloggers! when presented with this challenge, i wondered how we could incorporate two things that N is naturally curious about exploring right now: illustrating (like a fiend!) and butterflies. i like to go with the flow…

with mother’s day coming up, my own uber-creative mom is on my mind a lot… and this blog is purely an homage to her. i decided to attempt to replicate a “visual aid” my mom created with me for science class when i was in about third grade. a perfect marriage of cardboard, drawing, butterflies, and celebrating MOM!

first, this crunchy boho-chic (um, pretty please?) momma got a new pair of birkenstocks (long overdue! sigh – but not so chic.) the box they came in seemed perfect for the challenge. i used an x-acto knife to cut a little window in the top of the lid to serve as our “screen” for the story to show through. then i sliced Xs across from each other in the top sides and bottom sides of the box, which is where our dowels (cardboard tubes) would go. that was the grown-up part of the project.

yes, i have big feet & when it comes to birks, i'm classic arizona or maybe a florida

next, N chose turquoise acrylic paint to cover the box, and used a small paint roller to paint the entire box. then she picked plum purple paint to paint the dowels. i remember that the version my mom and i made in the 80s was wrapped in fabulous hot pink butterfly wrapping paper, but we opted for paint so we could open & close the box afterwards.

while the box was drying, we cut a long thin strip of white scroll paper (from the roll of paper that goes on her easel.) we discussed the life cycle of a butterfly, which is currently what N is learning in preschool. on monday of this week, they watched the butterflies emerge from the chrysalis with wet wings and fly away. she is fascinated to say the least!

N named 4 stages of the butterfly: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis or pupa, and butterfly. as you see above, i drew boxes vertically along the scroll of paper for each stage, and two extra – for a title page and ending page. N is a sucker for puns, and got a great idea to draw a butterfly dancing on a stage for her title page: “stages of a butterfly”

she then got busy illustrating each of the phases in the cycle.

and was quite proud.

after the box was dry, N added many different butterfly stickers to its surface.

we opened the lid and used packaging tape to tape the top of the scroll to the top dowel and the bottom to the bottom dowel. (i love that this box has a hinged lid so that we can open and close it to perhaps insert different “stories” later!)

that's the image of the butterfly dancing on a stage. get it?

once the story box was complete, N was sooo excited about it! “we made a TV!” she exclaimed. i’ll let her give you the little tour through her story, winding the dowels at the top and bottom to crank the scroll through the images…

the four stages – images spliced together

click image to enlarge to see details - those are droplets from the "wet wings" in the last image

ta da!

the end (i'm sure the box could have used another coat of paint)

thank you to rachelle at tinkerlab for this challenge and for one year of your oh-so-inspiring blogs! and huge gratitude to my amazing mom for your contagious creative spirit and igniting my passion for self-expression! i hope i can do the same for my daughter.

happy mothers’ day weekend, mommas!

wanna see more cardboard creations?

there’s been a LOT of self-directed drawing going on in my home these past three weeks or so. and i mean A TON. did you see the video i posted on facebook the other day? yeah, N is doing at least 60 of these illustrated stories per day. i know a very prolific artist who is on a roll over here!

3 weeks worth of her 2D, non-preschool, non-paintcutpaste art

one of the themes i’ve noticed (when sifting through the pages that get deposited on my desk throughout the day) is that N is into tracing her hand a lot these days.

in addition to the tracing, there seems to be a lot of rainbow manicuring going on in these images.

and some really cool rings and jewels. (i’m really into the stacked turquoise bands above, personally.)

so just a quick little bit about one of the many themes arising organically in the art over here as of late — yep, this and the muppets.

how about at your house? what sorts of things do your little ones draw repeatedly?

i like how these rings are on the ringfinger

p.s. – any tips for me on storing all of the masterpieces that don’t get recycled? right now these 9×12 images on her drawing paper are archived in a HUGE 3-ring-binder.

how many of you out there are familiar with toot and puddle? if you don’t know of them, they are two pigs (with a show on nick jr & some books) who learn about different cultures. in each episode, toot goes on a trip and sometimes puddle joins him, but not usually. on each solo trip he has, toot sends a postcard to puddle about his adventures.

image from nick jr.

recently, i went on a 2-night business trip to colorado – solo. this is the fourth time in N’s four years that i’ve been away from her overnight, and the first time she’s had a great deal of separation anxiety about it. she was home with daddy the whole time, but she still felt insecure about not having mommy (who is usually attached at her hip) around. the night before i left, N drew this image.

"mommy flies to colorado"

i left little gifts for her to open each day while i was away. we texted pictures of our adventures back and forth to each other, talked on the phone, and even skyped on my iphone during my trip. when i returned, i learned that she had gotten really into sending “postcards” to puddle while i was away. she wrote quite a few, in fact. her dad reported that this became a game where they would hug and she (being toot) would say, “i have to go, bye bye!” then she would come back with the “postcard” and a gift (many seen below) and they would embrace and say their hellos again.

each postcard talked about a gift toot had gotten for puddle on his adventure. for example, the one below says, “dear puds, i got this gold from a leprechaun.” (puds is toot’s nickname for puddle.)

some others were: (my husband was awesome enough to jot down these translations as she created them while i was gone. thanks, sweetie!)

• “dear puds, i got you tickets to the north pole. do you like it? i thought it was fun.”
• “dear puddle, i found this rock on the ground.”
• “dear puddle, i found this clover on the grass.”
• “dear puds, i got this fish. do you want to eat it for dinner?”
• “dear puds, i got a slinky marching in a parade.”
• “dear puds, i got this trophy.”
• “dear puds, i got this egg from an easter bunny.”
• “dear puds, “i went bowling and got two turns with it. i miss you. your pal. toot.”

i love that N’s inner wisdom led her to this art activity, where she was rehearsing saying goodbye and knowing that when someone goes away, they come back. i wish i’d thought of playing some sort of toot & puddle make-believe before i left! leave it to kids to create their own medicine, right?

i love that each time toot and puddle say goodbye to each other before a trip, they say, ”a boomerang flies but always returns home where it belongs!”

yesterday we visited N’s allergist to repeat a series of tests for food and environmental allergies. we know these appointments tend to be long (2-4 hours) so, of course, we brought along art supplies.

isn't that a cute crayon roll? wish i made it, but i got it on etsy.

N is allergic to most nuts and also a legume (peanut) – she has a dangerous anaphylaxic response, as well as a contact allergy where she’ll get hives if she touches them. she also has intense allergies to oak, grass, and other environmental allergens. just to raise some food allergy awareness here, as an aside, i beg of you parents to please wash your child’s hands and lips (and yours) after they’ve eaten nuts so that kids like mine don’t look like the picture below when they touch the slide at the playground or hold hands with your child after s/he eats a PB&J. please be mindful of the severity of contact allergies. okay, that was my PSA on that. back to the art blog.

N had a skin test at age 2.5, and repeated it yesterday at 4yr 2mo.

15 minutes into the skin test

the skin test does not puncture the skin. it just exposes small areas of the skin to a liquid form of these allergens to measure the reaction. the most painful part is that it ITCHES and cannot be scratched (for about 30 minutes.) to alleviate the pain, the doctor said we could blow cool breath on her back.

N also had a stuffed animal giraffe, zoozy, at the doctor with her. we invited her to scratch his back and also to scratch our backs when she said “my fingers feel like they need to scratch something, even if it’s not my back!” N also asked to draw the entire time while we waited for the test to be complete. these are a few of the drawings she made there:

N said this is a picture of how her back was feeling at that moment.

N said the image below is: “me sitting sideways. that’s my back (left) and i have my knee up (right) where you see the scrape i got on it yesterday.” (she fell and skinned her knee the day prior.)

making art about what she was experiencing in the moment allowed N to make sense of what was happening to her and express her feelings about it. she was able to exhale these images out as a way to release the energy of the pain she was feeling. while it didn’t make the itching stop, the activity allowed a way to occupy her hands, stay present and mindful of her experience, and to visually communicate about it. this allowed her a sense of mastery over the experience, as these pieces of notepaper became safe containers to help her hold what she was holding. gosh, i could go on and on saying art therapisty things here, but i’ll just express my endless gratitude for art materials and for the inner wisdom they evoke from people of all ages.