Wednesday, March 18, 2009

art, art

Art. It is made often in our home by various members, in various mediums and at various times of the day. Whether it be a play put on by my older pair or an impromptu watercolor painting session by all three of them, art is a daily part of our lives.



This lovely little video was so inspiring to me. I watched it last week for the first time and couldn't get the music or images out of my head. So simple. So honest. It gave me chills.

One of my favorite lines from the video says great ideas come from great bike rides. Yes. Great bike rides are good. So are long, lazy afternoons with no agenda, no classes and no commitments.

Giving my kids raw materials to work with are so, so important to me. I try to stay away from coloring books or other types of "art" that limit their imagination or show them what to draw or how to create their art.

I can see how proud they feel when they create something new. A new painting. A new tool. A new piece of jewelry.

We find time every day for some sort of creating. Sometimes it is what you would think of as traditional arts and crafts. Other times it may just be a new fort that is built. Or a scene that is recreated from a book or movie (like the photo below where our coffee table was turned into Mr. and Mrs. Beaver's dinner table from The Chronicles of Narnia a few weeks ago)


Some types of handicrafts and art that we have tried our hand at include...
making salt dough
whittling

watercolor painting
nature sketching with pencil
origami
woodworking
doll making
sewing
embroidery

practicing handwriting and cursive
beading
clay sculpting (using Sculpey, photos below)


rubber stamping
spinning fibers (photos below)


soap carving (photos below)

Art. I hope that their love of making art and creative imaginations stay with them through childhood and remains their constant companion throughout their lives.

2 comments:

Jackie said...

loved that. you are too cool for school! :P

Anonymous said...

I really enjoyed this post. Also another moment of oh my goodness we are so much alike. I watched the video before reading on and on the things that I liked and stuck in my head immediately while watching was great ideas come from great bike rides. I think we were meant to be twins!
Your sista