Budding artist

I know that I have mentioned in the past that Zion colors very well for her age, but I don't think that I have mentioned the fact that she also draws very well for her age.  Actually, I didn't realize how well she drew until spending time with other three year olds.  She doesn't draw all of the time (she prefers to color), but when she does I am always impressed.  Here is a drawing from a few months ago.

She was driving me batty that afternoon, so I let her loose with a dry erase marker and a white board.  She got quiet, I finished what I was doing and when I looked up again, this is what she's drawn.

This is a drawing that she did today.  She said that is her in her wedding dress and the figure to the right is going to be her husband.  Unfortunately, her husband will have to wait until tomorrow because it was time for her to go to bed (she was not happy that I wouldn't let her finish it).

There really was no explanation for this drawing, but I thought it was pretty darn cute.  It's on the back of her wedding drawing.  Maybe it's the flower girl, but I think it looks very super hero-like.

All in all, not too shabby for a three year old, right?

Sharing some art...

...yep, that's about it.  I LOVE Alphonse Mucha's work and I've always wanted to do some pieces inspired by his work.  My idea was to recreate a piece using the original layout and colors, but incorporate my style and subject matter.  So, yeah.  This one is called "...this is what she's look like".  While I was painting, I kept thinking if one my paintings had a baby with one of Mucha's paintings, this is what she's look like.

New Painting...

...that's it. I painted this last month. Just thought I'd share.

Oh, and I got my new mattress, so I will post pictures of our finished bed soon.

Ballet Drawings

So I was asked to do some ballet inspired drawings to have at the girls' ballet performance. Ballet art is not really my thing, so I scoured the internet for some ballet inspiration and did a few drawings. Here they are (I did take them out of the sketchbook to display).

Mythical Monsters

We are still working on ancient Greece for history and today we had one of those moments where classical homeschooling and unschooling collide. We're working on history chronologically (which I really enjoy about the classical method). As we were reading Mythical Monsters of Ancient Greece Ashni decided that it would be a great idea if they made up their own monsters. So, they pulled out the craft bin, old magazines, crayons and glue and set out to make their own monsters with these questions in mind:
1. What are your monster's powers?
2. Where does your monster live?
3. What does your monster eat?
4. What is your monster's name?

Here is what they came up with....WARNING: Very Scary Stuff!!!

Jena's Monster
Name: Masstrash
Masstrash lives in the forest and eats babies (yes, eats babies), but only the babies that are in the forest without their parents. Notice Masstrash's multiple three eyed baby heads. Apparently the feet are gates and the ladder is to climb up and to kill it. You have to stab it in the heart right between it's two hairy nipples.

A close up of the scary baby heads. Notice the three eyebrows.

Ashni's Monster
Name: Poisonous Monster
Poisonous Monster lives in the forest and eats insects. The little yellow dots are poison. It has three legs and three eyes. All of the random puffballs and feathers are its babies and if it loses a baby then two more grow. (I'm not sure what's up with the baby theme here). Ashni's monster in into accessories. It is wearing a blue butterfly barrette in its hair.

Opening Exhibit

So, I don't think I've ever actually posted about my art. The art that is my profession....hmph. Well, anyway, tonight was the opening reception for the exhibit that I am currently in. The opening turned out nice. There was a good crowd and I made some connections and met a some good people. Here's some pictures of the kids and some of my art.

Really big kid art

I came across this great post over at U N Journal and thought it was a great project. So having the artsy little tribe that I do, we made it our weekend project. Our space here isn't nearly as nice the one over there, so we used the garage (fortunately it has been pretty mild the last few days). The kids did a great job and it was a good lesson is limitations, patience, and purposeful actions. The older two worked on theirs yesterday, so theirs are already hanging in their rooms. Bijou just did hers this morning so I will post pictures of it hanging after it dries.

This is Bijou's. I enjoy painting with her because she is still young enough to not be attached to painting "something". There's a freedom to preschool painting because there is more focus on the act of painting rather than the act of making something recognizable. She was perfectly content to see how the colors interacted with one another on the paper. Her biggest concern, though, was making sure she used every last drop of paint in the container. I think she succeeded.

I gave the bigger girls two more constraints. 1.) They had to leave some white paper showing, but it had to be a very small amount. 2.) They could only use the broadest side of the brush (they had two large and one small), no skinny edging. Ashni said that hers was a house with a weather vane on top and a large black snowman.



The older girls' paintings are about 5 feet tall and 2, maybe 2 and a half, feet wide. Bijou's is about 3' x 3'.

Fun with playdough

I'd been promising the girls for months that I would get them some playdough when we got the art room together. It took months, but we've finally put our unused laundry room to use as the kids' art room. It has been a VERY welcomed addition to the house. I'm not sure who thinks that carpet is good for a house with children, but we have been blessed/cursed with a lovely house covered in carpet. Because of that, there has been very little paint or playdough used over the last year. So this morning while waiting F-O-R-E-V-E-R for Zion prescription to be filled at Walmart, I decided to finally get the girls some playdough. They played Ace of Cakes and Food Network Challenge (Cake Off) all day (except for when I forced them to do some math and reading). Jena created her own playdough island, complete with waves in the water. I'm sure some day soon I will have pictures of 8 tier wedding cakes draped in flowers.