paint cut paste

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!

so, i let my 3 year old use a sharpie today. yeah, i know they’re not for kids, but she is a drawing FIEND and loves to draw with a regular pencil because she enjoys the black and white contrast. i figured i could show her how to use one of my new retractable ultra-fine point sharpie markers, and she LOVED it. she drew and drew.

my personal favorite media combo to use is sharpie and watercolors, so i put out the paints, and let her paint on her drawings. ah, markers that aren’t water-based don’t run. the joy!

yellow raincoats

true to form, N cranked out some greeting (mostly birthday) cards. (her middle name should have been hallmark. seriously. does the fact that she makes every card that goes out of our house and most of the gifts qualify as child labor?)

for my mom's ("gwee") birthday

i just love these!

she did some other non-card sharpie drawing, too. welcome to my favorite media, little one.

N was on my lap while i was at the computer yesterday. (typical.) i was doing a google search for a random rug i’m trying to find that’s been out of stock for far too long to find it. [humph.] anyway, kandinsky’s circle painting happened to come up in the search, and N was attracted to it immediately when she saw it. “ooooh, let’s make that!” she said.

wassily kandinsky, colour study: squares with concentric circles

to begin, i used a thick, black sharpie to draw circles onto a piece of thick drawing paper (we we’re out of watercolor paper) and then i gridded them off into boxes. this gave N some framework in which to paint, though it isn’t a necessary step. in hindsight, it would have been awesome to use watersoluble crayons (easily one of my favorite media ev-ar!!!) or watercolor pencils for these guidelines. even using pastels or crayons would be cool because they’re colorful and resist the watercolors.

i offered her pans of watercolors, matte and metallic, just for fun. i showed her how to make concentric circles with the brush, and she was off and running with it on her own. (oooh, six mandalas…)

after she finished the first piece, she wanted to draw her own circles with the sharpie and paint them in, which she did.

this one reminds me of murano glass.

while she was doing that, i drew some concentric circles with the marker on another page. after she finished painting, she said she wanted to color those with crayons.

such lovely bubbles of mixed-media color – she loved our pollock painting, and here’s another masterpiece a la the late greats.

this is just a little peek at what i did on sunday… it’s a rare mom’s art entry, as i usually only post what my little one is up to in her creative world in order to inspire other little ones out there. but today was a perfect, rainy sunday and mommy got her art on while daddy spent some quality time with N (coincidentally, at a bird sanctuary, though the birds there were taking cover from the rain. oh well.)

here’s what i did today:

drawing at the dining room table after breakfast

pencil sketch on my beloved 140 lb arches hot press

inked & inspiration

a small color study

big birds in process

in living color

finished, pre-frame

ikea-framed and hung above our bed

all in a glorious sunday… i don’t think i’ve accomplished any of my own creative projects start to framed finish in one day since N’s birth. these little birds have been wanting to hatch for a looong while now, so i consider this day a milestone for mommy!