paint cut paste

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 novi (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 (unmade... oops!) 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 novi’s birth. these little birds have been wanting to hatch for a looong while now, so i consider this day a milestone for mommy!

just a simple little thing to share… one of novi’s oldest (well, he’s 3 years young) so, i should say longest friends is celebrating his birthday this month. for a gift, we decided to make a fun little frame commemorating their friendship. (they now live on opposite coasts of the country and haven’t been able to see each other in a while.)

novi watercolored an ikea wooden frame with her favorite color – purple. then we collected various trinkets, buttons, shells, her sculpey creations, some shrinky-dink designs, and other findings from our art cabinet, and set out to glue them onto the frame once it was dry.

novi drew and wrote a cute little card for him, and we framed a picture of the last time they hung out together.

happy birthday, v!

we’ve been having lots of fun over here with some of my most favorite materials – wood and watercolors!

at my pink & green mama friend’s suggestion, i bought a bag of wooden figures and some awesome wooden eggs from casey’s wood products. i also had an opportunity to bust out my woodburning tool – fancy!

i made a few large eggs myself, for our dining room table basket.

then novi and i got busy painting lots of great wooden eggs and other springtime figures.

and some gifts for friends (shhh…)

after the watercolors were dry, i sealed each piece with my homemade wood creme.

we love having these natural little friends around our home!

bunnies... not cats?

happy easter, happy spring, happy bloomin' everything!

you may recall that last summer novi and i had so much fun marbling paper with shaving cream, and we got beauoootiful results! after recently hearing from a friend that her daughter marbled paper in preschool with oil and water, i decided we should give this method a try.

science: oil and water don't mix

i looked online to figure out how to go about this project, and found this little ditty. so we tried it their way, by mixing one color of paint with water and the other color with oil. however, they used tempera paints and we used liquid watercolors (as i believe my friend’s teacher had.) we got unsuccessful results at first using the instructions because, well, oil and water(colors) don’t mix. see? one of the colors so wasn’t happening.

so then we tried another way. we laid the paper on cookie sheets (the kind with edges) and drizzled oil onto the paper haphazardly. then we poured on pink liquid watercolors (diluted in water) and rolled it around. then some more oil. then blue liquid watercolors (diluted) and rolled the tray around. sometimes we used the eyedropper to drop blotches of undiluted color onto the paper for a vibrant effect, too.

and then we got marbling…

it was fun to see the effects on different colors of papers. the swirls weren’t as defined as the shaving cream method, but random and lovely nonetheless. we hung the sheets to drip dry in the garage overnight.

the next morning, novi was pleased with her results…

as was i… the paper made for cute stationery for a little note to a friend.

this activity was sort of a blog fusion of several other projects we’ve done with watercolors, tape, and cards… it’s nothing new, but hopefully inspirational in its organic cuteness.

we’ve got a lot to celebrate as winter goes out like a lion and spring is welcomed in like a tiny sheep… many birthdays, pregnancies, new babies, and celebrations amongst our friends and family. when those times hit, we go into full-on card-creation mode in my house. on this particular rainy day, i was feeling watercolory, so i put out some watecolors and heavy watercolor paper. i always tear my watercolor paper with a metal-edged wooden ruler instead of cutting it, so that it has those lovely frayed edges.

i divided the paper up into lots of tiny pieces. i taped them down to novi’s art board, using artist’s tape around the borders to create white mats or frames later.

then novi got busy painting little scenes and fun colorful abstracts, too…

after the paintings were dry, we chose colorful blank cards (love the boxes of blank cards at michaels for cheap) and fun background papers. we glued them down to make some professional-looking kid-made greetings.

momma made a bunch, too!

happy merry celebration time!!! now we just need a book of stamps!

as an art therapist, one of my favorite art interventions to use with clients is the scribble drawing. two prominent art therapists (winnecott and cane) independently came up with this technique which uses a self-made scribble as a visual starter for an image.

a scribble drawing i made as an example for novi

usually the scribble is made on a large sheet of paper, and sometimes with the artist’s eyes closed. novi was way into this idea when i first told her about it, so she grabbed a crayon and went to it.

after your little one makes a scribble, encourage them to look at the scribble to see if they recognize any image in it. turn the paper to all four sides, and ask “what do you see?” when i asked novi about this brown one, she said, “hmmm, what do i see? this is almost like making shapes out of the clouds!!!” it totally is. exactly.  sometimes there may be a concrete, representational figure that emerges for the child. or sometimes it might be an imaginal story that comes about, which can also be fun. novi saw her first brown scribble and said, “there’s a snail in there!” because we already had the watercolor paints out, she wanted to paint in the image she saw. (it’s fine to just color it in with crayons, pencils, pastels, or whatever graphic medium you have around.)

she gave the snail a crazy name, too!

after the snail, we made several more scribble drawings…

contemplating the pink scribble

she saw a bunny in there! (i helped trace her lines with the paintbrush on this one)

hmm... what could it be?

a girl with a beach ball, of course!

the next day, i heard novi playing with her magnadoodle in the other room, saying “hmmm…. what do i see? a mouse!” a few moments later, she called me in to see the magnadoodle scribble drawing she made of “a mouse making a dress with lots of thread.” (we watched “the mouse song” from cinderella on youtube earlier that day.)

for the past few days, novi has been doing scribble drawings on her own all the time with her crayons and paper. it’s like a fun little puzzle for her to solve, and exercises the imagination.

in my art therapy practice a few years ago (before novi’s birth,) i loved using scribble drawings with adult clients who were often intimidated to begin making art, stating the fear: “i can’t draw.” it’s a great way for any child or adult to warm up to art, and this activity uses the imagination and taps into the unconscious mind in finding and developing a picture from the scribble initially produced.

what a useful and fun art activity! scribble away!

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