Sun Art.

We have an art show to attend this weekend *and* I'm decluttering my craft room. Doing the latter turned up this paper so that we could have a project for Ainsley to showcase at the former.

Gray and I tried it first with his toys.

This was what it looked like after being in the sun for five minutes.

Then we rinsed it in water.
Not so clear. Instead of holding them under running water to rinse them, we poured water into a pan, added some lemon juice, and soaked them in that. Much more clear.

Once the girls (and their cousin) saw the process, they were all over it.

Ainsley's beach page

Hannah's beach page

My fantasy page.

That one looked like it would turn out really cool but we got busy with another page and left it in the rinse water for too long. Totally ruined it.

We ended up using all fifteen pages, so we have a few for the art show and one less thing in the craft room.

Submitted to Saturday's Artist at OLM.

Nature journaling.

Beautiful warm weather. Of course we had to draw it.

It's the second time Hannah's nature journal has come out this year, the first time Ainsley's and mine have.

And Grayson still has no interest in nature journals when there are tricycles to ride.

The Art Garden - a fantastic new find.

So excited about this. One of my friends started up a new website she named The Art Garden that has art lessons on it. She puts up at least two new videos each week for each lesson, one for the parents and one for the kids. This last week was about the artist Matisse (here is the parent's video and here is the kid's video).

My kids watched the video but quickly diverged from drawing shapes to asking random questions (Hannah) and drawing dragons (Ainsley). They weren't really drawn to any of his artwork that she showed, so we googled him and they really dug a few of his pieces that we found online like this one, this one, this one, ooh, and this one too!

They weren't sure that it would be fun to make, though. I told them I really wanted to do this and have them do it with me, so would they humor me? Pleeeeaaase? They did.

Once we got started, they had a lot of fun.

Ainsley's favorite one she made was this one -

Hannah only made one - but she was very meticulous with that one.

Then she said "You know, that teacher lady said that Matisse would do art as big as he was! Can we do that?" In true Hannah fashion, she'd been listening to the video while she was asking random questions. She kept peppering me with facts about Matisse that the 'teacher lady' had said during the video.

So we rolled out some paper and taped it up and they went to town again, this time with a much bigger canvas.

Gray woke up from his nap right before they were done and got in on the action. Then he decided Mystery Garden was more fun and brought it over to play with me while they finished.

I loved how this one turned out.

Especially the little shapes that were random placements that ended up making cool designs.

They each signed it in big letters. They thought that was pretty cool.

This week on The Art Garden website is 'Animals and Art'. I haven't looked at the videos yet because I wanted to get Matisse done. I just knew that as soon as the kids got started they would enjoy it, and they did.

Also, she has a private Facebook group you can join and have your kids submit their artwork for other kids to look at and comment on. Hannah has *loved* doing that. Let me know if you join - I would love to see your kids art!

To be an artist.

"He,
who works with his hands,
is a workman.

He,
who works with his hands and his head,
is a craftsman.

He,
who works with his hands and his head and his heart,
is an artist."

Francis of Assisi

Hannah has decided that she wants to be an artist when she grows up.

Painting, drawing, stitching, crafting, any type of 'art' will work. In talking about it, trying to find out what I could help her with, she mentioned that she wants to do "the art that needs eye goggles". Mkay.

So, this is a call for help.

What the heck is she talking about? Can you think of any art that requires eye goggles? Art that a six-year old can do?

Matt asked her if she was thinking of science experiments that used eye goggles and she said "Well, Father, I haven't ruled out being a scientist when I grow up, but mostly I want to be an artist. So I could do experiments, but it would be more like a hobby."

Painting with flowers. And stuff.

Yesterday, I was weeding in my garden and the girls were playing in their butterfly garden when I was asked for some help. It sounded roughly like this. "MOOOOOTHHHHHEEERRR!!! Ainsley picked my sunflowers! They're going to DIE." When I got over there, I saw that Ainsley had picked one leaf off of one of these flowers.

(This picture was taken days ago. I don't make my girls pose for blog photos in the middle of a diplomatic engagement.)

I told Hannah that one leaf would not a dead plant make, but that I could understand her frustration. I asked Ainsley why she'd picked the leaf. "It not leaf, Momma, it paintbush."

"It's not really a paintbrush, is it Mother?" asked Hannah. "You couldn't paint with it, could you?" Well, I don't know, so let's find out. Hannah grabbed her own leaf (without any of her sunflowers dying), I reminded Ains not to pick any more, and we went inside and got painting set up. The most important part of setting up painting for the girls is setting Gray up with his own project.
Here, paint sparkly glue onto a coloring page. (I'm a creative mother.)

Then the girls got going with their leaves.

Sure enough, they could be paintbrushes.

This brought on questions about what else could be used to paint. The flowers in the vases on the table, maybe?
Certainly.

The orange peels Mother's picking up to throw away?

Yep.

The buds that were picked too early?

Especially the buds that were picked too early.

Then Hannah remembered her recently bloomed zinnias and ran out to get some.

She is reaching in in that funny way because she was in a hurry.

The sprinkler was on its way back.

We ended up with many 'process' sheets (it's the process, not the product) that really highlighted practice, experimentation, and creativity, a few of which are on the wall. We also ended up with two 'product' sheets that the girls wanted to put up on the wall.

One was a paper Hannah made with two different flowers that looks startlingly like the night sky on the Fourth of July.

And the second was one by Ainsley that is a vibrant mixture of red, pink, and orange that really is quite pretty on the wall in that strange modern art style.

All in all, it was a smashing success, born from the desperate attempt of a mother to diffuse a potentially deadly* situation. Crisis averted, art produced.

* "deadly" - little girls screaming and crying over misunderstandings and killed sunflowers while a little brother looks on in confusion

One of those artsy kind of days.

Remember how I mentioned last week that my girls are not really into coloring books? Well, today they very much were. They even colored during lunch.


Hannah is working on a storybook, so she has a collection of all of the pictures that she's colored today from four or five separate books and tomorrow we're supposed to make them into a book and she'll tell me the storyline.

When it got really hot this afternoon, I stopped weeding, grabbed some supplies, headed to sit under a shady tree and called the girls over to do something I've been wanting to do for awhile. I gave each girl a sketch book and a pencil and told them to draw something that they saw.

Hannah drew a tree.


Ainsley drew a boat. A big boat - on waves.

I was not really surprised at how enthusiastic the girls both were about the activity. What surprised me was how *studious* they both were.

I've never seen Ainsley sit cross-legged voluntarily before. That was cute. And her arms, and her face ... that's another part of our artsy day. Her sister is trying her hand at body art.

We had company.



The cat inspired a portrait by each girl.

Ainsley's -
Not bad for a two year old. She got the spots at least.

Hannah's -
Later she added a vole the cat was chasing and an apple falling on the cat's head.

It was my first time doing this and I'm a bit ... um ... too obsessed with detail maybe. I painstakingly finished one in the time it took them to joyfully draw three. I figured if I was going to put the girl's drawings up, I should put mine up also.

I need practice.

So today we put our first entries in our first nature journals.

Art with flowers and fabric.

Before we moved, we made flower art with flowers and grasses from our property. I got the idea from OLM. Of course. She's full of lovely ideas.

We gathered up the necessary collecting receptacles. A bug net for Ainser...

and a basket for Hannah.

Then we filled the basket full of flowers and grasses and leaves.

The bug net got filled with chicken eggs.

Then we laid a piece of linen down on some cardboard, arranged the pretties on top, covered them with another piece of linen, and the girls took turns hammering.

I couldn't get pictures of their 'flower paintings' because they've carried them with them in their backpacks since we made them and... I'm afraid I can't find their backpacks. I know they're around somewhere. Maybe the car? Or the kitchen? Or under boxes in the craft room? I dunno.

Anyway, here's the one that they helped me arrange and make.

It's sitting in my 'to do' pile in the craft room. I was just going to put it in a frame and put it in their room, but it's calling to me. I'm thinking maybe I'll embroider to clarify and add detail? Not much, just a bit. I'm still thinking on it.