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!

it’s eric carle‘s birthday, and art bloggers all over the web have been celebrating with their children and colorful animals! we were invited by an amazing child to join the party – and we’re showing up with bells smocks on!

when i think of eric carle, i remember N’s very first baby books and how much she loved when i read the very hungry caterpillar (my all-time fav) and brown bear brown bear to her in our comfy nursing chair before sleepy time. these will always be cozy memories for me. in the past year, N has been reeeeally into foxes – it’s her most favorite animal. can you tell?

i saw the book hello, red fox in our local library and decided to grab it, as we had not read it before. what a perfect choice, as it teaches children about complementary colors in a really cool optical illusion sort of way – and we’ve been exploring color wheels over here lately. we dove right in and read/stared at the book. (if you click this link, you’ll understand why. it’s tricky – like a fox!)

then we got out a bunch of art materials for two different projects…

first, we mixed and created our own color wheel using momma’s fancy watercolors (just because) and talked about the idea of complementary colors… and why the “red” fox on the cover of eric carle’s book was green… hmm…

after that, i suggested we use some of N’s finger paintings brought home from preschool to build an animal – eric carle style! she wanted to make a fox – naturally! (hey, there’s one idea of how to repurpose and transform all of those preschool pieces of art…)

first, we talked about what shapes make up a fox, and she drew them in pencil on top of her fingerpaintings. circle, oval, triangles, rectangles…

then she cut the pieces of a fox… hooray for cutting skills! she did a great job cutting on her pencil lines.

then she pasted them onto a new sheet of paper – N chose black for the background.

after it was glued down, she used a black sharpie (supervised) to add some details to the nose and eyes. this was literally a paint cut paste experience!

what’s your favorite eric carle book, and what memories does it hold for you? have you made any eric carle art with your kiddos? if so, click below to share your own, or click to view many other bloggers’ creative takes on eric carle tribute art!

oh, i have been wanting to try this for years, and i finally got around to it this father’s day! i remember thinking about doing this when N was just born, but (weirdly enough??) i kinda of wanted to wait until she had a substantial ponytail. ha! anyway, the timing was perfect for this custom, heartfelt, handmade, on-the-cheap dad’s day gift.

here’s how we did it: i took a nice profile photo of N against a white wall one day after preschool. i asked her to keep her chin up and give a little smile. (you should see some of the hilarious outtakes during this process… )

then i used my photo editing program to turn it to black and white, and pump up the contrast. (i use pixelmator because it’s free, works well, and i can’t afford to update my old version of photoshop to be compatible with my macbook. you can probably do all of this with any very basic photo editing program.) you may need to play around a bit with things like invert, posterize, and threshold to get the right feel for a simple black and white silhouette. i turned the inside of it white, so as not to use up all of my printer ink. here are some of my steps along the way:

i printed it onto contact paper sheets with my inkjet printer. (i made a small one and a larger one because i wasn’t sure which to use.) i caaarefeully cut out N’s silhouette. then i wiped any excess ink off of the contact paper with a towel before peeling it off and sticking it onto thick watercolor paper. i ended up using the large one for this project, with 11×15″ watercolor paper.

after it was stuck down securely (especially around the edges) i used a soft, fairly fat brush to wet the page around the edges of her face. then N chose blue watercolor paint (daddy’s favorite color) to drop into the water. (wet on wet watercoloring technique.)

i had to work fairly quickly so the paint would not dry out and create weirdness (which happened anyway along the bottom, but i’m okay with that.) when the painting was totally dry, i peeled off the clear contact paper. i was so happy it came off the watercolor paper in such a clean way!

peeling, revealing

we framed it in a simple and lovely matted frame. N and i were so happy with the finished product!

so was daddy! this image is going to hang in our family photo gallery in our stairwell. we like to mix art in with our photographs when displayed – and this one sort of counts as both.

hope all the dads and granddads out there had a beautiful weekend!

this weekend we took a long drive down highway 1 along the pacific coast, stopping at various beaches along the way. days like that remind me of how lucky i am to live here in northern california, and on this beautiful earth in general. nature offers some of the most amazing art inspiration!

one of the beaches we visited had amazingly colorful stones all over it. we spent hours wandering this beach, enjoying running from the chilly waves and collecting stones.

when we layed out our bounty at home, it was a rainbow of gorgeous rocks.

i can’t wait to ink some of these rocks – and i also want to learn to crochet around them like i have oogled over on one of my favorite blogs, resurrection fern. but today we opted for a simple rock craft – picture holders. easy peasy. all you need is floral wire (or any other type of wire, but i prefer this wrapped kind in dark brown) and a pair of pliers.

wrap the rock with the wire, then point the wire upwards.

now make a curlycue at the tip with the pliers – you can make a fancy spiral or just a little curl like i did.

wedge a photograph or a little piece of art in between the top spiral, and there you have a rock picture holder.

it’s sort of addictive once you start making these…

i think a collection of old fashioned hipstamatic/instagram/pictureshow images would look fabulous displayed in these. (yes, i’m obsessed with iphone photo apps.) but N’s tiny watercolor paintings make for an awesome exhibit.

my sister-in-law & brother-in-law are expecting their second baby this summer – yay! i wanted to do something special to celebrate his pending arrival. what better than a collaborative art piece where family and friends get involved?

i have done this project before for a friend a couple years ago, and it was beautiful and well-received, so i figured we’d give it a whirl for my nephew on the way. i emailed a list of people the couple provided to me and asked each one to send a brief blessing, prayer, wish, quote, or lyric for the family as they welcome their new son. i gathered the quotes and put them into a keepsake book for the family, along with the well-wishers names.

then i selected excerpts from the quotes and wrote them out on pretty goldenrod card stock (this time without everyone’s name.) after i wrote them out, i cut them into strips.

i watercolored a mandala of the family to place in the center of the art piece, which i envisioned would be a sunburst.

we recently visited our adorable nephew (1y 5m old), who is soon to be a big brother, and he (along with mommy and daddy’s help) finger painted the background image for this blessing piece of art. tip: use analogous colors of finger paint so that it doesn’t turn out brown or muddy, unless that’s the look you’re going for.

after the paint was dry, i glued the blessings and mandala to the finger painting to create a sun shape.

what a colorful collection of wishes for the new baby on the way!

this piece, which i framed for their home, holds the energy of all of their loved ones’ support as they welcome a new little boy into the world!

i’m so very excited to have a dear friend and one of the most laugh-out-loud funny mom bloggers out there guest blogging here today — the awesome ms. hannah, from to the moon and back, writes here about creating a totally inspiring, whimsical, and heartful piece of art for her son:

sleep has always been a place of hardship, terrible stress and many tears for our almost three year old, j. and quite frankly, for his mom, dad and often little sister, h. it’s just oh-so-hard when your child is struggling with something out of their control; everyone’s control. we’ve been working through and around and in this place for a long time and {hopefully} have learned a bit about how to move forward and beyond. i’ve been visualizing a dream catcher or mobile of sorts that would symbolize the love, strength, and optimism we want to fill our son’s room and his sleepy little head with. i started by explaining my vision to j – a piece of art we could make together to hang in his room that would make him feel safe, remind him how much he is loved and help him through his trying nights. he was beyond excited. it was a rainy day so we geared up and headed out to find inspiration.

we found the perfect sized stick; and with just enough bend in just the right places for the base of a wall hanging. we headed inside to create the artwork and inspiration. without any specific pre-conceived thoughts I dug through our arts and crafts closet and came up with some materials: shrink film, ribbons, watercolors, finger paint, colored pencils.

h is a watercolor girl. she could play among their liquidy goodness for hours. ok, let’s be honest, minutes. like 32 of them, maybe. while she painted, I cut two sheets of the shrink film into smaller pieces to decorate. *the instructions on the shrink film are to use permanent markers – which can be a daunting thought with a 19 m.o. and an almost 3 y.o. but hey, what’s the worst that can happen?

before baking our shrink film I punched a hole in the top of each piece so they would be hang-able later.

watching shrink film bake and contort and form in the oven is just oh so cool. and voila!

h’s water color was just so vivid and great that we decided it should be our focal point. to add some texture I cut the paper into four pieces, punched holes in each and threaded with ribbon. (the ribbons re-used from a friend’s baby shower last weekend.)

j decided he’d like to hang h’s watercolor from the center of the stick and from there we choose ribbons to tie and hang in random order along both sides. (these iridescent ribbons, symbolizing the love and bond our family shares, are from our wedding in 2006 where they were hung all over an apple tree to shimmer and blow in the breeze.)

next we hung our shrink film creations. for this I opted to use fishing line to keep things airy and light. from the baby shower gift I re-used  two leaf shaped pieces of paper; punched holes in them and cut a few more to add.

we simply threaded the large ribbons through the holes in the leaves  to add a “feather” dream catcher effect – but in keeping with our nature theme, of course.

and there you have it. our whimsical, colorful, bad dream squashing, peaceful night evoking, sweet dream mobile.

and so far, so good. j went to sleep with a smile on his face and excitement in his eyes. the journey through parenthood and childhood is so challenging.  in so many ways. acknowledging j’s fears and angst around his sleep and showing him, in this way, that we are here for him and love him and will help him through this {I hope} will be just the boost his little body needs. and a little help from the best sweet dream mobile ever has got to sweeten the pot, no?

thanks for the opportunity to share with you, paintcutpaste fans!

-hannah

thank YOU, hannah, for sharing such a beautiful and meaningful project with all of us! hop on over to hannah’s honest and hilarious blog on motherhood, to the moon and back, to read more from her and “like” her blog on facebook, too!

yes, i’ve posted this one before… and it’s because we’ve just realized that this is becoming one of our springtime rituals in our house. sure dying easter eggs is fun, but watercoloring wooden ones leaves a lasting impression.

a package was delivered to us last week from casey’s wood products. when i opened it and N saw a bunch of wooden eggs of all sizes, she started jumping up and down… “we’re painting wooden eggs again!?!? yay!!!”

because we were having a few families over for dinner, N wanted me to woodburn the names (blurred out below) of the kids onto a few of the eggs (and one for her, of course) with my trusty woodburning tool.

then she was totally absorbed in watercoloring the eggs with colors that remind her of those people.

after polishing the eggs with our homemade wood creme, we presented them in a nest to the kids at the dinner. the artiste was very proud.

i think we’ll do this every year… as gifts, and as decor for our own nature tables and baskets. what springtime rituals do you have in your home?

sharing the joy