paint cut paste

this is a little frog story, illustrated by my little artist. she calls it “play drawing” when she draws while telling the story (oh so dramatically!) as she creates the pictures. thought i’d share this little ditty N made up in her room on friday afternoon, in her own words, as explained to me when she came downstairs:

(click images to view them in a larger size.)

“once upon a time there were six frogs. they were hanging out on their lily pads until one day they decided they were bored. they wanted to paint cool designs on their lily pads. so they did. and when they did, they realized the lily pads looked like surf boards, so they went surfing!

one little frog (the one at the bottom who was about to paint purple in the first picture) surfed by a pole and held on tight!

and then when he let go and was surfing, he saw his reflection in the water, and he felt peaceful.”

i just love the expressive faces and postures captured in this little vignette… random froggy surfing fun!

as a child, i was a HUGE muppet fanatic. i listened to “the muppet movie” soundtrack over and over and over in my bedroom every single day for several years. my favorite holiday album was (and still is!) john denver & the muppets: a christmas together. when i was 5, i had a rainbow painted on my bedroom wall and muppet stuffed animals strewn across my bed. my master’s thesis was titled: “the rainbow connection: the chakra system as a framework for transpersonal art psychotherapy.
” (okay, so nevermind the latter part of the title — i was trying to convey that as an adult, i never got over the rainbow connection piece.) i had a major boo hoo session when jim henson passed. i met his daughter when out with some puppeteer friends when i lived in NYC, and asked her to draw kermit on a napkin, which i kept. i’m a muppet weirdo. yep. so you can imagine my muppet-crazed-child-of-the-70s elation when my daughter fell in love with the muppets, too.

while she has never been into sesame street like many of her friends (N complains, “there’s no plot mommy! it just jumps around, and i want a story!”), she loves all of the muppet show/muppet movie characters that jim henson created. she’s a bit lonely in this, as most of her preschool friends don’t know who gonzo is, but she’s happy to teach them by drawing pictures like this at preschool:

animal and kermit

N is particularly into the muppet band, the electric mayhem:

can you picture that?

when N sees my husband in the morning, the verrry first words out of her mouth are, “be floyd!” most of my days are spent swinging my hair back and forth, saying “fer sherrr” while pretending to be janice. and N is, of course, animal. she will see a letter “A” and say, “that’s what my name starts with, because i’m not N, i’m animal!”

family portrait: floyd, janice, and animal

we play a “guess which muppet i am” 20 questions type of game for hours on end many days, and she LOVES finding obscure characters to pretend to be, like beauregard, lew zealand, sweetums, and dr. bunson honeydew. she often tries to take over when we have our computers on so she can type out “our” names.

because the muppet songs, the muppet show, the muppet movies, the muppet stuffed animals, and the muppet personalities have taken over our home and art for the past three months, i figured i should post about it here. that is authentically the subject matter of most of the art and play happening in our home at the moment. do your child’s favorite characters find their way into the art in your house, too?

what kid hasn’t transformed a cardboard box into a house or car? well, mine hadn’t until today. we recently got a new water cooler that came in a big box with some extra cardboard padding. just had to recycle some and upcycle the rest into an artsy plaything, of course!

first, N saw the cardboard and asked if she could draw on it with markers. once the markers were in hand, she said she wanted to draw a house on it. a lightbulb appeared above my head (in cartoon world,) and i suggested the cardboard BE the house and she draw all of the things on it that she’d want on the outside of her house. then she went to work on windows and doors, grass and flowers, trees and nests…

when she was finished drawing, i used an x-acto knife to cut out the door. i might have cut out the windows, too, if N hadn’t drawn such cute curtains onto them.

then i taped the two pieces of cardboard together with packaging tape to make them into a square.

N immediately began to bring in the (animal) inhabitants and furnishings.

she set a bunch of animals all around a fireplace, on chairs and benches, and said they were “telling stories and roasting marshmallows.” cozy. she even draped a yellow playsilk over the top of the box to make it seem bright inside, “and to keep out the rain.”

sure, these cardboard creations can get so much more elaborate. i’ve seen beautiful, intricate cardboard houses and birdhouses and furnishings made by others. but for us, this was an impromptu sunday morning thing that just happened simply and organically, just the way i like it. and there’s always room for N’s little house to grow!

this was good for HOURS of play today after it was made… wonder who will move in tomorrow…

sometimes we’ve just gotta have free art time… without limits on materials, without “how-to’s,” without specified products. i love these moments when N just asks for watercolors or markers or colored pencils and goes for it. we’ve been doing a lot of really open, unstructured art time in our home these past coupla weeks. it’s good for the soul. we just stuck to the basics and watched the creativity floooow…

in my art therapy training, we talked about a theorist named mihaly csikszentmihalyi (pronounced “chick-sent-me-high”) who coined an idea called “flow theory.” flow is his term for the emotional state opposite frustration. flow is when you are fully, happily absorbed in an activity, completely satisfied, but not taking on more than you can handle. it is often what happens when an artist becomes absorbed in their work, and notions of time and space fall away. i relish in this creative space, and kids organically go there in their imaginal creative play. when observing a child in this state, you can usually hear all sorts of made-up stories, characters, ideas, plots spewing out – like a peek into the unconscious, coming out without a filter. such an honor to witness.

while “in the flow,” N has made plenty of tiny paintings that have become and will become cards for friends and family…

N has also worked on some larger watercolor masterpieces that now adorn her art gallery wall…

"duck eating grass" & "N in a beret, about to climb a ladder"

by my nature, i’m more at home with the expressive arts than i am with the crafting. imagination plus pigment yields limitless expression!  so let it flow, let it flow, let it floooow…

the shed in our backyard has been less-than-attractive since we moved to our new place six months ago. we sort of unpacked our garden things into the shed in a haphazard way, and let them sit there for the winter. spring cleaning and revamping was in order for this shed.

sure, it's not the most glorious structure, but it has potential

i had a vision of turning the shed into a little playhouse for N, using things we already have and hitting up freecycle and some yard sales.

after taking everything out of the shed, and cleaning it off, we began to turn it into a fun play space! every play area needs a sign, right? so N and i painted one together.

N's background & letters, outlined by mommy in white. bubbles by mommy.

and with a little TLC and a big splash of color, our drab shed took on new life…

a place for play…

(more on this feature tomorrow - stay tuned!)

a place for creating…

art supplies in drawer beside easel

a place for displaying…

a retractable clothesline makes for a nice place for art to hang & dry

a place for collecting…

birdhouses, jars of pinecones, jars of shells...

for storing toys, balls, bubbles, and playthings…

with the addition of N’s water table, little pool, sprinklers, small picnic table, fairy tent, bikes, and other fun playthings, our backyard will prove to be a fun space to hang out and enjoy in these warmer months…

ah, much better!

crayola’s model magic is magic, and today we were magicians turning plain white putty into adorable animals! i love that model magic is mess-free and so easily malliable for little magicians.

N had a great time squishing and smooshing the model magic for a long while before we made any “thing.” this sort of art-making time is what it’s all about — it’s the process, not the product. in those moments, she is having a sensory experience, and she is fully engrossed in imaginal play, telling stories and making up dialog and voices. i live to listen to these activities, and it seems like sculpting supplies really brings my daughter into that inventive space. (of course, paint does, too. i love art.)

her first creation today was a sphere that got smooshed, and then she gave it a face. she’s getting good at figure representation.

first face sculpture

then i remembered that i saw this clay owl on the 4 crazy kings blog, and i knew i had to make some! N and i both adore owls (they’re one of my totem animals,) as do many of my friends, so these will make festive autumn gifts, or perhaps holiday ornaments. we followed the simple instructions from the blog, and made an entire owl family. N was able to help me make the balls, smoosh them, and also to indent the feathers and eyes with the end of a marker.

magical owl family

then we got model magic happy and made some cats, fish, and turtles, too! this goop comes in tons of colors, but i like to get it in white because it’s easy and fun to paint and/or color with markers.

colorized

we brought these animals to life with paint after they had hardened 24 hours after making them. such fun!

creatures with features