paint cut paste

the winter solstice is upon us, where the days will begin to get longer from there. in celebration of bringing the light and due to its being the darkest day of the year, lanterns are often made in honor of the solstice. two years ago, we made a lovely lantern at the waldorf school where we were in a parent-child class with N before she turned 2. they made quite an impression on her, so i thought we’d make them the same way again for this winter solstice.

when seeking a how-to memory refresher online, i found the most lovely tutorial on the garden mama blog. seriously, her beautiful entry about these lanterns deems this one totally unnecessary, as she wrote the most poetic and wonderfully photographed tutorial on these i could imagine. but i’m going to (b)log our experience here, nonetheless.

admiring the finished product on a dark winter morning

we started by beginning the wet-on-wet watercolor process. we soaked three sheets of watercolor paper.

then we opted to dilute my tubes of professional grade watercolors in little jars of water, though you could just use regular watercolors for this. we also chose to only use primary colors, so as to make this an experiment in color-mixing.

N painted and painted, watching the colors run together and create new hues – magic!

when we were finished painting, she wanted a little more vibrance, so i pulled out the watersoluble crayons (one of my favorite media on earth!) and she added some red, yellow, and blue lines into the wet paint. when wet, these crayons behave like concentrated paint.

we hung the masterpieces to dry overnight.

the next day we rubbed them with canola oil on a cloth, so as to make the paper more translucent when lit from within.

after the oil was dry (about a day) we cut fringe along the long side of the paper. we made two like the garden mama blog suggested (ever 2.5 inches, 2.5 inches long) and the third we only did at 1.5 x 1.5 inches.

we used a pillar candle to evenly roll the paintings around, and secured the edge with school glue, and clothespinned them until dry.

after they were dry, we folded the bottom tabs in to create a bottom.

then instead of putting real fire inside, i used little electric tea lights instead.

now we are ready for the darkest day of the year!

all ready to bring the light on december 21st! (which, incidentally, is my birthday )

by the way, those cute wooden reindeer you see in the photos were a custom set that the talented chris over at mamaroots made for N. we sooo love her creations!

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.

oh, how i am loving my new wall art in the playroom/guestroom, so i just had to share… we’ve had these great cool-hued finger paintings that N made before she turned two framed on the walls for quite a while now. here are the old ones, which i do love…

the finger paintings will live on in my heart and N’s portfolio, but N was making these amazing concentric circle watercolors the other day that i adore.

she loved choosing color schemes and watching how the paint colors overlapped and interacted as she painted.

after she had made a few of them, it dawned on me that these are the perfect addition to the newly rearranged playroom. as soon as they were dry, they were behind glass and hung.

N was super excited to see them in her play space.

it’s the simple things. we went to the beach on sunday. it was a foggy afternoon on the western side of the coastal range here in the bay area. a beautiful time for the three of us to spend together…

we spotted all sorts of treasures…

N is happiest on sand or with a paintbrush in her hand… so we had to decorate some of our beach booty upon our return. it wasn’t really a planned activity. we had the watercolors out and the shells were there, so it sort of happened.

and now our shells are all decked out in technicolor! i wish i knew how to drill holes into them to string them for chimes or necklaces, but i haven’t the tools. what do you think we should do with these beauties?

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.

school’s out for summer! this was N’s last week of preschool until it begins again in september. to celebrate, the parents hosted a little potluck party after the last class to honor the two preschool teachers who have been so amazing to our little ones all year long. and, of course, there were gifts…

we collaborated on a scrapbook for the school, where each child was responsible for creating a page for the book, complete with art and a photo of the child. here’s N’s watercolored page (recognize the rubber cement watercolor resist?) it’s complete with her picture, a self-portrait drawing, and her drawings of both of her teachers. oh, and it’s signed by the artist!

name and face covered for privacy

a few weeks ago, we gave each teacher their own handprint tote bag for teacher appreciation week, but we still wanted to make them a little something to commemmorate the end of the year. so, apples for the teachers. naturally. i grabbed two wooden balls (flat on one end) from my wood stash, and i used the woodburning tool to put each teacher’s name on an apple, the school’s name, the year, and N’s name on the bottom.

(school name blurred for privacy)

then N went to town painting the apples with watercolors.

we waited for the paint to dry, and then we polished each apple with our homemade wood creme.

then we cut out stems and leaves from green felt and i hot-glued them to the apples.

voila, an apple for each teach! happy summer everyone!