a child's designated art space?

What are your art spaces like for your children? Do you clean everything away? Keep it out? Do your children ask for art supplies often? I've been thinking about this a lot as I set up our homeschooling environment. How many supplies can I keep out before it become chaos, and how much is not enough?

Here's a great question I got on my Facebook page, from a friend:

I was wondering if you would share your thoughts about creating art spaces for kids. S loves art and draws every day. But we are swimming in materials and space is an issue. Do you have any ideas about creating a space that works for the whole family? And what materials do you suggest? Honestly, he loves to free draw. So I always make sure he has paper, crayons, markers and pencils. Can I get rid of the bins and baskets of other materials without depriving him? It gets so chaotic so quickly. Thanks

And here is my answer:
It's a great question. I think there are a few factors that can contribute to how you handle an art area in your home. 
1- How much mess can you take? 2-What kind of supplies do you have? 3-Do you like to create with your children, or leave them to it?

1- I am a very messy person and I enjoy mess - up to a point, and then I'm done! However, I've been finding that my personal philosophy and style embraces a working/in process space. I don't like my living space to be static and feel like a hotel. That's just me. We have supplies everywhere and I try to keep them organized, but our house can feel like one big studio some times! For others this might drive them nuts (and I get it, I really do), they might need to have a specific, designated space for such activities, but I would encourage that person to challenge themselves to leave the materials out for little hands to easily access. When they are packed away and over-organized a child is much less likely to run with an idea and go crazy making (and learning tremendous amounts through that making time).

I came across this wonderful quote from Lori Pickert of Project Based Homeschooling, "A streamlined learning experience smooths off all the rough edges and the rough edges are generally where most of the learning happens". I think this applies to how your home and art making area is set up. The more access children have to getting into the muck and mess of an idea, the more they learn. 

2) I am a huge proponent of throwing out the crayons and buying kids really fantastic art supplies. Get oil pastels instead of crayons, the color is so much more rich and the texture offers so much more to explore. Buy high quality markers (that don't wash off walls!), get bottles of tempera paint and water color paint, good brushes, not the crappy kinds you get at toy stores. Having good art supplies will show your children how much you love what they are doing and will encourage them to do more because it will be so satisfying and the process and results will be so dynamic.

3) If you have a designated space that's not too confining and you have an organizing system that you can live with then you are good to go, but it sounds like it's driving you a little nuts. Do you sit down and make things with him too? Does he prefer to work by himself? I ask these things because I have found that when I have sat down and joined in, or done my own work alongside my kids, the mess bothers me less. I'm in the process with them and seeing it from their perspective which is "WOW! I have so many cool things to work with. Gimme more!" This may not be exactly what you are looking for, but if you can embrace a little of the mess and mayhem of an art space the payoff is huge. I'm so excited that S is such an artist. I'd love to see some of his work! Thanks for your question. I am working out all these things as I go along. I'd love to hear more about your solutions / process / journey.

Margot Mondays - Advent calendar part I

Monday is the one full day of the week that I have with Margot. She is in preschool the rest of the week and so it's a precious day. However, like many of you, I also have work to get done, groceries to buy, dishes to do, laundry to wash, and email to check. Many Mondays are spent doing far too much busy work. I have missed connecting with my kids through art making (one of the original ideas behind this blog)  and so I thought - let's make Monday all about Margot. 

I know it's Tuesday and I'm a little late getting this Margot Monday kicked off, but to be honest I didn't think of Margot Monday until the wee hours of Tuesday morning! So here we are, and I want to show you what we did yesterday. 

Margot loves art projects just as much as I do, and so we came up with a fly by the seat of your pants Advent calendar idea. This week we used stamps, ink, and glue to make envelopes for each day of December and Margot painted clothes pegs to hang them up with. Next week we will do the really fun part of dumpster diving (or walking to our local grocery store and asking) for a palette to break up and use for the back of the calendar.

Come back next Monday (or probably Tuesday) for the next installment.

it's that day again

I'm thankful it's Friday, but also kind of wishing it was Tuesday as I have so much to do. I'm trying to stay in the moment and be present for my daughter painting next to me, and take in the trees changing color outside my studio window, but all I can think about is the fact that I have things to print, and make, and do do do!

Slow down I want to yell at my freaky self. It. will. all. happen. SO first things first - here's a Freak Flag for Friday. It's a fun one I think. Circles are always happy for me, as well as the color green.

You can purchase a print of this collage on my etsy shop. I've done a lot of updating recently to include some new prints, and hopefully in the near future, some tea towels and cards. You can click on the link to the right to see the shop, but here's a preview of some of the goodies you can find there.

Have a great weekend. 

Remember to crunch the leaves, 

carve a pumpkin 

and smell the crisp Fall/Autumn air. 

light, drawing, hands

We've all been sick this week and finding slow, peaceful activities has been key. We made a light table for the first time and we were all entranced. I didn't know but this same box with lights can be used for starting seedlings as it becomes slightly warm. My avid gardener of a sister in law passed on this tid bit.

R's beautiful gum ball machine drawing lying on the warm radiator in the afternoon light.

My sketch for an illustration of Woodie Guthrie's song containing the lyrics "Tom cat, Mama cat".

R's hands working those fine motor skills. He hummed and sang to himself as he worked, calm and happy.

M's sweet hands doing what she loves best right now - drawing.

Boxes are the best

I have probably taken a photograph of my children in a box every week of their lives! They love sitting in them and going to new imaginary places in rockets, planes, cars, fire trucks, elevators and carriages.

This box has had a number of incarnations and on the day that the above picture was taken it was a school. You can see they are sitting on tiny chairs, but what you can't see is the enormous pile of pens at their feet.

I almost forgot that Margot has also made this same box into a Sarcophagus, and herself into a mummy using toilet paper and washi tape!

One of the best things about playing in boxes for me, is that there can be as much or as little direction from the parent. There are endless things that they can come up with on their own, or you can get out the paints and Xacto knife and build a house with opening doors and windows.

Do your kids like to play in boxes? What is their favorite thing to do with them?

I am linking this post to 'a portrait of my kids once a week for 52 weeks' over at lovely Che and Fidel.

#messylabcoloring

I was inspired by Rachelle over at Tinkerlab to help grow the community of artists (large and small) on Instagram. Follow Tinkerlab's tags #creativetable and #tinkersketch.

And join in Messy Lab's too - - #messylabcoloring - - Try to take the photo as your child is in the process of coloring, using natural light and not a flash. We'll get a better chance to really see what you are creating that way.

Add the hashtag to the comment under your photo.

I can't wait to see what you and your kids are collaborating on. 

2.16 portrait of sibling love

These two are seriously best buds. They play, fight, love, play, sleep, laugh, cry, play, eat, sleep, read and poop together every day. It makes my heart sing to see the love between them.

left-overs

"I want to make art" is M's latest refrain. Now this isn't once a week, or even once in a blue moon, it's every day. Yes, every day I hear in a loud clear voice, usually from across the house "Mummy, I want to maaaake aaaaart".

On the particular day that I am thinking of M was sitting on my lap at the end of lunch. She saw the Mod Podge perched at the end of the table and asked to make a robot. To be honest I didn't have the energy to get out paper, scissors and odds and ends for collaging so I said "use what's on the table already". 

Sometimes it's a good idea to let go of our perceived notions of what art should look like, or how a child should do an art project. Look at what is in front of you in a new way. Tooth picks and cheese could be a tower, paper and forks could make a tent, and left overs could become an orange rind and pretzel robot.

These moments teach children to look at every day life with new eyes, to be fascinated with the world around them, to practice non-linear thinking, and in this case we also talked about what shapes she was using to create her robot.

I'd love to hear what fun and quirky things you have made with your kids that surprised even you?

Family

I don't normally post about things that happened more than a month ago, but I stumbled upon these photos this morning and they made me laugh so hard I feel I have to share them.

These shots were taken in October 2010 by a friend of ours, David Sampson. He's faithfully documented our kids as they grow and we try to support him by sporadically going to hear his amazing band, Cains and Abels play. It's hard to go to shows now as they are so late (I feel pitifully old saying that)!

I remember that this day in October wasn't particularly cold and so we went outside. I think we gathered as many fallen leaves as we could for the kids to play in and laid out a plaid wool blanket for us to sit on. As many events  with kids go it started out organized, fun and under control. Within 10 minutes we had reached disorder, hair pulling and gleeful screaming!

Let's dive right in

So hello there. Where do we start?

It's like the first page in a sketch book. I don't want to wreck it with some awful drawing.  I want to it to just be done so I can get on to the 'real' posts.

I have to say I have always been a 'rusher', hustling through things as fast and hard as I can, enjoying the intensity of the moment. Quite often when I rush it has a tendency to get messy - - whether its in the kitchen when I bake, or at the dining room table when the kids and I paint with string, or a conversation when I share too much too fast.

There is joy in this kind of messiness too because it comes with connection, connection to your senses, connection to others, and connection to yourself and something greater than yourself.

I'd say my mission statement of sorts for this blog is to encourage you in the messy, through the messy, and with the messy in life. I want to post about projects that you can do with your children that will connect you and your kids to your senses. By doing these projects together you will be very present with your children and I hope you will learn more about them and your corner of the world.