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.

a portrait a week

I've missed a few weeks but as a friend said to me 

"it's better to do something imperfectly than nothing perfectly". 

I love the dreaminess in my children's faces in these photos. It's not often that you see this quality in an adult's face. After the events this week in Boston I was looking at my kids and wondering at what age they would first learn about the twisted nature of some individuals. I was thinking about my friends with older children and curious about how they are talking about this situation with them, as well as about Sandy Hook. 

Have you had to talk to children, or other friends, about these recent events and how have to handled it? 

What do you want for your children to know in the midst of tragedies?

This is part of the portrait of your children once a week for a year over at Che & Fidel.

6 year old in the house

My little boy turned six this past week. After a month of family sickness (strep, flu) we were all (almost) healthy and able to celebrate with a small party and  cupcakes at school. When my parents came for the following weekend we went for a warm wander through the conservatory in Garfield Park. It was a welcome warming of the bones during a brutally cold March.

The new 6 year old took off in great joy through the green moss and winding paths shouting "we're in the jungle, we're in the jungle". I only wish we were. This March has been particularly cold and windy. I don't even remember the month of his birth in 2007 being quite so awful. I love reading blogs in Australia, like Che and Fidel, or my two sister's blogs in the UK - Playdohandpoo and spooninginthekitchen, as it reminds me of other seasons and temperatures!

My in-laws in Mississippi have seen daffodils come and go already, and we are still waiting for their green heads to break through the earth here. What signs of spring have you seen near you?

These are part of a portrait a week series on Che and Fidel.

a photo a week

Action shots. Well, these are aren't all that action-filled, but for sick kids climbing on a sofa and jumping on a trampoline constitute action. I love M's tongue sticking out. It's her cheeky sweet self.

This is a funny one of R as he's coming down from a big bounce and he has some serious trampolining concentration on his face. RIght now he's refusing to have his hair cut. I have been trying all sorts of bribery just to get a tiny trim, but he's having none of it and can smell a bribe from a mile off.

This post is linked to Che and Fidel's lovely project 52. A Portrait of my kids once a week for a year.

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.

BRF day boy

I was so proud of my soon to be six year old when he told me he wanted to draw each invitation to his birthday party, and draw each one he did. The front was the same on all of them. He wrote BRF DAY BOY, but inside was a special drawing designed with each friend in mind. I was planning on taking photos of all of them but he sealed them before I had a chance. I found the least sealed and snuck a couple photos! I love how he added the smily face and present to the BRF. Now I'm planning how to make the requested green ninja birthday cake.

Freak Flag Fridays

Yes, it's Saturday and I'm writing my Freak Flag Friday post now. I've been looking forward to writing this post all week, but as you know life can be messy and throw you a curve ball.

On Tuesday my husband got a bad concussion when he slipped and fell on the ice while out running. He couldn't remember how he got home (about 20 minutes of lost time)! He's not been himself since and the doc assures us this is normal. The CT scan looks fine, but it's really odd to have someone you know not seem like themselves. He looks like a lost little boy most of the time even though he's trooping off to work.

Our brains are at once so delicate and resilient.


On Monday I was excited about Friday, but then Friday arrived and I was so discombobulated by the week that I couldn't get the post done. So here I am on Saturday night writing while my husband is asleep and the kids are watching a movie.

Next Friday I'll explain how Freak Flag Friday came about - I promise.

I hope you have a good weekend.

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.

portrait of my kids once a week for 2013

My children are mad about dressing up. It's probably the thing I have to clean up the most around out house. There will be Princess Leia dresses, knight armor and fairy wings distributed in a wave across our dining room as they make costume changes. Here they are a cat and a fairy. I love their twinkling mischievious eyes.

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!