My little student

My little girl is my teacher/muse as much as I am hers. She wanted to draw and paint as soon as she arrived home from school. I was just finishing up my adult painting lesson. I guess this inspired her!
She used charcoal and pastel to draw a light bulb and some sculpture we have on the mantel in the classroom.
I usually never show her or tell her how to draw something. Children are natural artists, with wild and unhindered spirits.

Although I did show her how to make gray, she really was really excited.
This light bulb is my favorite.

Coloration

I've just recently organized our family room book shelves by color. I really love this rainbow effect. I came across this idea from http://lovelydesign.blogspot.com/2010/02/zoe-and-fawn-giveaway.html she really has so many great ideas! I've been organizing everything lately and compartmentalizing all of my clutter. Since I am a collector and am constantly creating I have a need for all of the little things that I accumulate in the weirdest places. I even have a special place just for my thread that I waste from sewing projects. Well, "waste no more thread" I say. Anyway, here is our upstairs family space. The kids have the bottom shelves for their wooden blocks, which they stack and stick in the registers when I'm not looking. I love the sculptures they create and at the end of the day I can obsessively organize by color back into their proper place. It's lovely and practical.

Kandi:Kandinsky

Recently I've been working again trying to paint, teach and spend as much time with my kids as possible. Elizabeth my five year old loves to paint and work by my side, often I let her paint with me on my canvas. Although, this I've managed to do solo. This painting I started months ago, originally I had the rocking horse hanging in my son's room unfinished. I'd been looking at it for months knowing it wasn't finished. I'd stare at it when I was changing him, or rocking him to sleep. Only just recently after teaching my Youth Drawing and Painting class did I finally have have the inspiration to finish it. It started with the "Painting of the Masters" assignment I had them do. I have them pick an artist and one of their works, they will study and duplicate their piece, it's an excercise of color theory and composition. The student's really enjoy this assignment, they get to learn about their artist, experience their style and create a masterpiece. As I was looking through the my Art books, I came across Wassily Kandinsky and I was inspired! Kandinsky is credited with painting the first modern abstract works. His work is colorful and playful, poetic and musical. I needed some of that infulence in my life.

A little lesson on Eric Carle

We spent the afternoon tearing and pasting tissue paper to create Eric Carle's blue horse. Elizabeth loved it! She's always wanting a new project to make and if it's not with me in the arthouse classroom, she's up in her room cutting away at yarn and paper creating a monstrously beautiful collage out of what ever she can find! I'm thrilled that she is growing so comfortable with her ideas and becoming more and more creative everyday. Today she made a blue horse with tissue paper and gloss medium. We've displayed in our our refrigerator gallery but soon I'll frame it and give it an official spot in our living room.