Saturday, March 16, 2013

The Young Artists

 I've been meaning to scan in and blog up my kids' artwork.  Mostly because Sara so often surprises me with the kind of work she can produce.  She's very careful and meticulous and does amazing things with drawing and cutting.  She loves it and she's good at it too.  Looks like we have an artist on our hands!  Unfortunately, I didn't record the dates on a lot of these.  But I believe they were all done in the last 12 months?
The drawing above was done by Sara.  The composition is really nice!  But I was particularly impressed with the little figure up on the right, with the frown and the arms and legs.  I haven't taught her any of this stuff she's doing, so she's just watching and learning from what mom and dad do and from the books we read.
These next two are Nora's.  I taught her how to draw a jellyfish, and she went crazy.  Her first drawings, which I can't find, were gorgeous and carefully done.  But this is her usual drawing style as of late...wild and crazy with big motions.  Totally Nora!

 These little pink ones by Sara are really interesting.  Those two on the left are side profiles.  One of a woman, and the other of a.....alien?  Haha, I don't know.  Nora did all of the writing.
 I think this is my favorite of Nora's so far.  She said that those were tiger stripes (and you'll notice the vertical lines for the paws), and that this is of "Rachel and Nora and Sara with one leg".  She has a thing for Calvin and Hobbes, so she *often* draws tiger stripes all over her body.  She was about 3 and a half here.
 And this shows a couple of my favorites from Sara.  That caterpillar with the leaf was inspired by an illustration from Ladybug Magazine.  When I saw this I recognized it instantly.  I just LOVE that she's looking at other drawings, and remembering them and being influenced by art!  And aren't those little faces on the bottom AWESOME!?!?
 Here is Sara mimicking Nora's jellyfish drawing (on the bottom), and then she also drew that cat at the top.  Totally her--no instructions from me whatsoever.  She was almost 2 and a half here.
 Some fun coloring by Sara back in October.  I love that she didn't just stick to one color, but filled in some of the shapes with this splashy color.  Really cool!
 I think this drawing marked the first time I thought: Wow!  That's really amazing!  Really, she wasn't even 2 yet!
 And here are some more cute faces by Sara.  She was about a month shy of 3.  I love the little house in the middle of the page, with windows.
 And Nora and Sara worked on this one together.  This wasn't intended to be art at all; they were just playing with paint.  But it's kind of nice, no?  And this is what Sara did today (on the right).  This is a drawing of "Amber with her long hair and the ocean all around her."  The thing is, she drew this upside down, so that it would be right-side-up for the rest of us.  Kind of amazing, huh?  I think so. 
Maybe someday we'll all be painting in the studio together, Sara sitting at an easel and Nora throwing paint from the top of a ladder (;  Love it!

Thursday, January 17, 2013

We are not dead yet!

 Well, ahem, it has been a while!  I haven't done much art (besides the art of birthday cakes and the art of vaccuuming and the art of surviving with a  4, 3, and 2 year old in tow), but I have done some.  So let's document, shall we?
 I've actually been teaching a little homeschooling family.  I will be the first to say that teaching kids is not something I'm a natural at.  But I'm learning.  And they are absolutely the best people in the world, and very patient with me and my learning curve.  I'm going to try to take some more pictures of the work they've been doing and put it up on the blog.  The two photos above are part of an illustration project.  Zach (10) wanted to illustrate a scene from the Hobbit, so we made a dragon out of clay and used Rice Krispies for the pile of gold, and a little lego Bilbo for Bilbo.  Ha!  I'm excited to see how his painting turns out.
Over Christmas I was able to do a couple of drawings as gifts, one of my nephew Graham:
 And this drawing is of Grandpa Fisher, who died a few years ago.  This was for my mother in law.  I got tears!  It was a good moment.
I'm working on another drawing, one of my nephew, Ollie, and I'm also toying with the idea of bas relief sculpture for portrait work.  My homeschooling family bought me some sculpting tools for Christmas (!!!) so I have what I need to begin!  Hopefully I will be posting some sculpture here sometime soon.
Happy arting!