They seemed to be all the rage this year! So we gave it a go too. I was really impressed with how they turned out.

Note to self:

– red cabbage makes an incredible blue (pictured)
– when the recipe said 2 cups of matter, it meant vegetables. 1 cup of turmeric to 4 cups of water creates more of a yellow sludge. So use less with the powdered slices.
– rubber bands = fun
– white beeswax crayons make a good resist too!

Somewhere deep inside me lies an artist. She is still searching for the medium and the tools, but she is getting close. I see pictures in my head all of the time, I feel the urge to make things, but I don’t always know how.

While life has been heavy, the urge has been stronger than ever to express myself. The primary way I do it now is with words and occasional photography. However, I feel that my words are clumsy and get in the way of my thoughts. My pictures capture what I see, but they don’t always communicate the feeling nor what is conjured up in my mind’s eye in reaction to the scene in front of me.

I have my eye on some art classes at Laguna Gloria. I want to learn to work with acrylic paint, mixed media techniques, collage, and book binding. Oftentimes, I will use the desire to make something for someone else as a reason to create.

But I want to let go of my practicality and give myself permission to create just for the sake of doing so. Or as a friend relayed recently, “for the experience of doing so”. For the release I will experience in taking all that is inside me and arranging into a piece of art.

And wouldn’t it be funny if a big part of this journey right now was to lead me this place where I realize that the missing piece in the way I process and experience life is what I create. And maybe that is some of the void.

And perhaps I am totally off-base. But I need to take a leap to find out. So some classes or mentoring are in order. I like the idea of creating just for me. I watched this beautiful video the other day and this quote stood out to me:

‎”Art is a way to set free whatever it is I can’t explain in words.” ~ Misty Mawn

Yes. I see all around me how when life gets hard, what gets dropped first are the things that bring us joy, that keep us grounded, that remind us who we are. Fun is free and is something we have control over. Even with some crayons, paper and glue – amazing collages can be made.

The trick is to really grasp at what we have control over and how to keep balance. We don’t have to be tossing water out of the boat every single second. Which leads into my next post…..how to let go of control (which we don’t have anyway..). But first, I think some painting is in order….

..and I don’t mean that in the way that every parent thinks there child is an artist. She IS one. If you have ever watched her create, you know. She creates art out of anything and I am constantly blown away. From a very young age, she has made self-directed art projects. She loves to mix colors and make her own. She had a collage phase and a watercolor phase. Now we are in the marker and tempra paint stage (lots of color mixing) She can take trash and turn it into anything. She makes glue art. She experiments. She is always making something.

She is wicked creative and I am learning more and more how to get out of her way and not stifle that. For example, I no longer ask her to NOT mix the watercolor paints in the tray. Now she has free reign to do that.

Recently, she asked me to draw the outline of a cat. I obliged and when I came back, this is what she had made with her markers.

Those diamonds!?! That pattern! Then she asked he to draw a dog outline and did this:

I love the bands of colors. I also find it interesting that they have very vibrant, patterned bodies, yet all black legs. Late that night, she did this free-hand:

She is amazing and I am going to start featuring more of her work here. I keep all their art work and bind them in binders by year. It is so interesting to watch how both their artwork grows.

As far as Quinn goes, I don’t say much about it to her. She just needs to be herself and at this point, art seems to be a large part of who she is. Knowing that, I make sure that outlet is readily available to her and that she has lots of supplies. And I sit back and enjoy watching her express herself and her ideas.

I got to play teacher today and it was so fun! We haven’t gotten into any curriculum work yet and probably won’t until May. However, Tyler has been begging for a science class – he is very fixated on anything fossils and is getting into the notion of artifacts. So I did some reading in a Fossil book we got him and decided to start this week with going into the 3 kinds of rocks.

Today we did sedimentary. I explained a bit about them then asked them to draw layers. Tyler decided they should label their drawings – well, alrighty then, so we did. Finally, we mixed water, epsom salt and sand hoping to make our own sedimentary rocks. The process takes two to three days, so we will have to wait to see if we succeeded.

What I love about doing this at home is the flexibility and the time to explore an idea. Tyler decided he wanted to make another “rock”, but use crystals. Go for it! So he went outside with a hammer and made crystal sediment. We mixed a good bit of that in with the sand and will see what happens.

December was just not a good month for this family and therefore many of the fun craft and gift-making projects I would want to do never happened. We are making up for it this week crafting every day in preparation of Valentine’s Day. Today potato stamps.

Well the carving was hard and Tyler was quickly frustrated. I love how my kids can solve a problem like that. Quinn grabbed the larger cookie cutters that were out, put them on her paper and painted inside the cutter. Tyler did the same thing, but with markers and then expanded on his shape.

As we get farther into this, these are the things I love. That the lines aren’t rigid. That the kids have the freedom to go off in different directions and explore. Interestingly enough, while Tyler did not use the potato stamps I made this day, the next afternoon he wanted to try them out. We got the paints out and he made a few cards with the tulip. There is also the freedom to come back and approach something when they are ready to do so.

From here, Quinn and I continued to do art and Tyler went off to build legos.

As we slowly settle into homeschooling, I am seeing more and more where the magic comes in. One morning last week I sat down to bind some small books of the kids art. Upon seeing my needles and thread, Quinn said, “I want to sew.” She had been wanting to all holiday, but I was just too busy sit down with her. Tyler was right behind her with a “me too!” And so, that is where our morning went. And so it was that sewing was our focus for a few days. It was so cool!

And now for Day 2!

And they were back at it on Day 3!

From November 2, 2010

There are a lot of normal days around here, but so much cool stuff happens during those normal days.

The kids got a bunch of “bendy” straws and masking tape and made stuff. Tyler was very proud of his “trident”. He also took a coffee cup sleeve, taped some straws to it and made some kind of claw thing. Then I got out a cardboard box and Quinn and Tyler made the place quite cozy. I love looking back at these pictures when it is night and the house is quiet. With nothing else to distract me, I am able to fully appreciate their play and creativity.

Later on the kids put on Daddy’s shirts and had quite a good time swinging in them.

Later on that day we had crafts. We made Thanksgiving candles. This one is mine. Our fall nature table looking quite cheerful with the addition of some lovely flowers from a friend And finally, Tyler found my camera and took some pics of Quinn hiding behind her bank.

Some days I get so busy, I forget about all the magic and small moments. I am trying to change that. After all, that is one big reason I stay home.

Quinn is taking an art class at Laguna Gloria. It is one she and I do together. I love it because we explore many different mediums: paint, collage, clay and oil pastels/drawing. This particular day, Tyler’s Tinkering class, which takes place at the same time, was canceled, so he came along.

We did clay this day. Tyler said he was bummed his class was canceled, but was king of happy too because he enjoyed the clay. It was a beautiful day – we enjoyed the walk during our snack break near the lake. This day we were collecting bits of nature. We would later make square tiles and the kids make impressions into their clay tiles with the bits of nature they collected. I don’t have those pictured here, but they were very cool.

This is also another one of those times where I love homeschooling. Both those moments came from Tyler today. The first was watching him make a man with clay. The teacher had passed around examples of sculptures from renounced artists. One was the abstract form of a person. I could tell this was his digesting of that information.

The second was his third creation which he told me was a grasshouse. Ah, connections. So a few weeks ago we went to the Mayborn museum in Waco. While there they had a large replica of the grasshouses built by the Waco Indians. We learned about the houses and the Indians that day. Then here a few weeks later, he decides to create one with clay. I just think it is so cool how learning happens.