Activity: Mirror Mono-Prints

We have achieved two sleeping kids. All it took was a bit of exhaustion (Pumpkin was up for an hour at 4am) and a fever (poor Peanut). Nothing serious, but it will be a quieter day around here.

Last week was more fun. Searching my mind and our resource for a project we came up with mirror prints. Sew Liberated's Painting the Sky inspired this project. Unfortunately, I have neither the weather nor the courage for outdoor painting, so we had to adapt for indoors. We used square mirrors from the IKEA (long live IKEA), dropped primary color paints on, “painted”, and then pressed paper over with our hands. Then we added more paint and did it again. My artist friend informed me that we made mono-prints. What a cool word. It was really fun. I wanted to do more and more, but we kept it short and sweet.

It's the first time we've had paints out since our move, and it was so nice. I forgot that painting can be a 20 minute, minimal clean-up activity. The mirrors rinsed off easily with water and Peanut wears a t-shirt smock that's a piece of cake to take off and hang to dry. We are also in possession of a two and a half foot pile of packing paper that can also double as table covering. There are now marbles at home and plenty of string, so I predict some more paint experiments in the not so distant future!

My Creative Space

Here's Peanut's perfect-for-now art supply caddy. About a year and a half ago, I bought a set of Lyra Ferby colored pencils for him. It was a difficult but invaluable purchase. They have been one of our best kid buys ever. We received Stockmar Beeswax Coloring Blocks and Crayon Rocks as gifts. Having good materials has made coloring and drawing a lot of fun for Peanut. When he draws, he can become thoroughly absorbed in the task. It is a joy to watch.

We added some Koh-i-noor Mondeluz watercolor pencils to his selection this spring and he really likes them. I wasn't ready to do a big investment, in part because I was unfamiliar with the medium. Instead of getting a box, we only got five pencils; red, blue, yellow, black, and white. I think he likes the feel of a thinner pencil as well as the rich color. He doesn't have much use for the watercolor aspect, though. He doesn't ask for water often and if he uses it, it's to brush over lines as opposed to blocks of color. It's always interesting to see what he draws.

The Playful Learning blog inspired me to try arranging more purpose oriented spaces or stations in our home. This box contains different colored pencils and crayons, notebooks, stencils, and a few postcards for inspiration. What do you like to work with? Has the type of materials available influenced your or your children's creativity? Which camp are you in, “earn the materials” or “quality materials first”?

Go see more creative spaces!

Friday Moment

Inspired by Soulamama's {this moment}.

Not Forgetting

With all the new baby excitement around here, everyone has been adjusting. Perhaps no one more than our faithful Peanut. His affection for his little sister overwhelms me at times. He always knows where she is, wants to hold and cuddle and kiss all the time, and expects perfection when we put her blanket down on the floor. Lay down a blanket with a folded corner or a careless wrinkle and he'll require it be fixed - usually fixing itself - before precious baby sister lays down on it. And somewhere in the middle of all this, he's still changing and learning and amusing at an amazing rate. At this very moment, he's sitting next to me at the dining room table, playing with play dough and making up fantastic stories. He is truly lovable.

Our art mornings have gone the way of the dodo bird, but there are still art moments. Lesson for mamas with two babies - moments count! We have recently discovered markers. They a change from pencils and Peanut enjoyed the bright colors and big fat lines. Unfortunately, they were not particularly washable.

And instead of taking pictures of art, we took pictures of faces. This is "mad."

Still cute, eh?

Snow Day!

We've been hearing all week about a blizzard coming to Chicago. Luckily, the weather did not disappoint. This was the view out our window last night:

The Mama response to a snow day is to bake and do crafts, with good results. We got out yellow and blue paint. After laying on a thick layer and then smearing it with his fingers, Peanut tried scraping it with his finger nails. It was cool.

The Papa response to a snow day is, of course, much more fun. There was a lot of snow.

Only about twenty inches fell (officially), making this officially the third worst blizzard in Chicago. We didn't get to walk over any city buses (which legend has it a certain grandfather did back in the day), but the wind helped pile it up. Sometimes usefully for short people.

Sometimes just good for fun.

It's not snowing any more. The next phase is going to be extreme cold (down to -20 or -30F with the wind).

Warm Winter Outing

After our last weekend outing, we opted for a warmed destination this week. While a tropical island would have been appealing, we happily settled for the Garfield Park Conservatory. It turns out, we weren't really settling all. It was nice, warm, and green. Peanut enjoyed the fish quite a bit.

The glass art is by Dale Chihuly. I had never heard of him before our trip to the Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids this fall. His work is distinct and easy to recognize, though. We saw it in Florida at the Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden as well. I don't think of myself as a gardens person, but they are great destinations with Peanut and I like to wander outside in beautiful places. Also, the tram tours are great for pregnant ladies and toddlers.

The conservatory also has a nice are for kids. There are some activities and a slide. But the best they have to offer is definitely the spray bottles. That's just a bucket of water bottles that kids can borrow to help water the plants. We will certainly have to try growing some lettuce, radish, and whatnot in pots on the porch this spring. We may also have to work on his aim.

Art Morning: Beans + Glue = Drawing

Based on the success of our cut and paste adventure, I thought it would be interesting to encourage a bit more glue play with a different project. We did alright, but it turns out that beans are more fun to throw on the ground by the handful (after dipping them in glue) than paste on paper. OK, there's no huge surprise there.



The big surprise came later, when he wanted to draw. Peanut has been drawing closed shapes lately. This is usually done with much concentration and tongue stuck out when possible. It also comes with a lot of (promptly denied) requests for me or anyone sitting nearby to do the drawing for him. It was a real treat when he started drawing his own shapes - and drew himself a car. If you tilt your head a bit to the right and imagine there's light, you can see it. I'm mama-wowed.

Toddler with Scissors

A couple of weeks ago, I got to stop in at the art supply store, where I bought Peanut's first pair of scissors. Whether providing a two-and-a-bit-year-old with scissors was wise or just nuts was unclear at the time. Luckily, it was not an ill-fated decision. Last week, we got out scissors, some old magazine pages, and the glue and had a grand old time.

Teaching him how to cut was easier than I expected. We put fingers and thumb in place, put paper into the other hand and did one cut together. He needs two hands to open the scissors again and tends to cut holding them upside down, but he had no problem working it out on his own. He spent about half an hour quietly and seriously cutting into the edges of paper. I gave him some thin strips to cut into pieces, but that was less interesting. It looked like cutting at all was plenty of fun to start with.



Glue was the second part of our adventure. I provided some Elmer's glue mixed with water in a shallow dish as well as glue stick. It turns out that Peanut does not like getting his fingers sticky, so liquid glue was not as much of a hit as the glue stick. Also, the concept of glue to stick something on paper didn't quite take either. Maybe next time we will try something more interesting for gluing on.

Inspired by all the kiddy craftiness I see at Soulamama and The Artful Parent, I'm trying to do an art morning once a week now. This was our second go. The first week, we painted, which is always fun. Next week, we'll go to the Art Institute to take advantage of free weekdays in January. We'll pack along colored pencils and a notebook and do some drawing there, too. I'm thinking about picking up Mary Ann Kohl's First Art for more ideas. Do you have any suggestions for more art mornings or resources?

Kitchen Monday

I don't have any pictures of Peanut wet up to his knees from the massive puddles at the playground. Neither do I have pictures of his buddy who one-upped Peanut by crawling through the puddles. We do have a child who doesn't mind a shower instead of a bath nowadays, so at least the bathing before lunch scenario is a bit less traumatic now.

I do have pictures of our afternoon kitchen session, though. We got quite a bit done and had fun doing it as well. Finding ways to include Peanut in cooking without causing either a major mess (his) or a major breakdown (mine) still requires creative thinking, but we're getting better. Baking bread together involves him dumping large quantities of flour into the bowl, and creating proportionately large cloud of flour. I tried to do the mixing myself and managed to break a wooden handled spatula in the process (sigh). As soon as we figure out where we're moving next, a red KitchenAid stand mixer is coming into our lives ASAP. Breaking spatulas are a sign from the kitchen gods.

We also made musli. Our version is mainly inspired by this homemade granola recipe. We used rolled oats, flax seeds, whole almonds, sunflower seeds, honey, and raisins. The trick is to make sure it's good and toasty before taking it out of the oven. Last time, it didn't brown enough and went soft too quick. Musli is yum. Stale musli is not.

The last project was pure fun - play dough. The recipe came from a friend. Instead of using food coloring, I used the water left from boiling beets for salad last week. The dough turned out a purple/red color with a very soft consistency. It might have gotten thicker if cooked longer, but thicker dough seemed like it might put the wooden spoon in danger. The dough was a huge hit with Peanut. He spent nearly an hour standing at the counter playing with it. Well - it felt like an hour. That could mean 15 minutes in real time for a toddler mama!

This last picture is awful - but illustrative. Everything in our house, on the street, generally falling into the hands of Peanut is an instrument. Here we have play dough as violin. You never knew, did you?

Rather busy

We've been keeping busy around here - both Mama and Peanut. There has been some painting.

This project was made possible by a very thoughtful gift from an artist friend. These Melissa and Doug Spill-Proof Paint Containers are fantastic. Peanut can pick them up, put his brush in, and pull it out on his own. It's got a funnel shaped opening that makes it easy to put a brush in and out, but nearly impossible to spill.

We're also learning to do more cooking tasks together.

Someone once suggested letting kids use an egg slicer to cut mushrooms. They were so right. This task was a huge hit. Peanut went through nearly a pound of mushrooms cutting them all on his own. He was completely consumed by this project and so proud of himself, too. This little find may be a major factor in our determining our menu for the coming months.

I'm also getting back to knitting.

This project was inspired by the Rib-A-Roni a hat I saw on Ravelry. It might have been better if I had actually followed the pattern, but I didn't. Saw the picture and then kind of went for it. It turned out ok except for having a bit of an unexpected peak. He likes it and wears it. That's plenty for me.

And just for the record - I'm not much of a photographer and Peanut does smile, just not for pictures!

What have you been doing?

Getting "There"

This week, Peanut had his first experience with water colors. Mama had her first experience with "messy" art at home - which turned out to not be so messy at all. In fact, the only mess we had was when I knocked over the water cup. Peanut was neat as could be with only a few smudges on his hands. He also got a good lesson in colors since he was requesting them by name. "That" and pointing at a tray of watercolors is not particularly effective.

So it seems we are getting there. "There" being an elusive idea about life where children run free outdoors and gardens are planted and creating happens every day and bread is homemade. "There" is such a solid and concrete vision for me that it is sometimes difficult to acknowledge the small steps that we are taking that bring us ever closer. Processes are more difficult to celebrate than end results. But the thing is that life is a process. The destination in my imagination will always be just a little ways off, just out of reach, and just a little more perfect than the reality in front of my nose. And the reality in front of my nose is not too bad at all. Look at it!

See here: the joy of discovery, the beauty of creativity, the eagerness of exploration.

We'll just keep working on getting "there," and enjoying the journey, too.

Drawing

This picture just makes me smile. Peanut loves to draw and is now enthusiastically making "zeroes" both big and small with help from anyone he can convince to draw with him. I've been much inspired by Amanda Soule and her lovely post. When it came time to buy art supplies as an Easter gift, I decided to go ahead and spend on quality instead of quantity. The results have been outstanding.

Peanut's first color pencils are a set Lyra Ferbies that I picked up in Haarlem. The price tag made me pause a full five minutes in the art supply store before just buying them. However, they have more than proven their value already. Today was the first time any of them required sharpening. Maybe we just don't color much, but the Crayola crayons I also got are half way to trashed, so the credit goes to the pencils!

The Rock Crayons were a gift from a dear friend who seems to not only be able to read my mind but even sends gifts to my parents' place when I visit there! I've been coveting these since first spotting them here. They came out for the first time yesterday and are an instant hit. Even the grandparents are in awe over their utter coolness.

With some luck, there will be daily drawing in our future. My only complaint now is that our roll of paper is packed away with everything else in storage and we're using individual sheets instead. I really liked the roll and being able to cover the entire table surface. It was a good way to silence the perfectionist who keeps reminding my 22 month old son to color on the paper only. Any tips?

Van Nelle Factory

One of my responsibilities at work is to visit students who are doing placements (internships). That means travelling all over the Randstad and sometimes further. Some of these students end up working in nifty buildings, like converted houses in the Amsterdam grachtengordel. Earlier this month, I went to Rotterdam and visited a student working in the old Van Nelle factory. I'm familiar with Van Nelle because I bought a second hand Van Nelle tin. They used to make coffee and tobacco.

The factory has been magnificently converted into work and event space. I was blown away by the beauty of the conversion. Details like pipes within the building were preserved. They haven't gone in and ripped out everything in order to install an office complex, instead the renovation preserves the massive windows, exposes the steel structure, and incorporates industrial looking design elements.


These types of projects seem to be more common here than in the parts of the US where I come from. Closer to my home, they have been working on converting the silos of an old sugar factory into what looks like office space for nearly five years. It looks like they´re done now. The silos are the tallest thing around and there are colored lights in the windows that can be seen from miles away. It´s quite a sight!

Design and the Elastic Mind

My sister just told me she's going to the big city, New York City that is, to support a friend who's in the Museum of Modern Art's Design and the Elastic Mind show. Her friend's project is called Grow, and they are essentially aesthetically pleasing, organic solar panels. The effect is not only green (as in environmentally friendly) but also beautiful. No doubt a why it will be at the MoMa.

Looking at the Grow project lead me to the website for the Design and the Elastic Mind site. It's fantastic and very different from anything I've seen before! The site responds to your mouse moving across the screen and if you click on one exhibit, you get to see a small picture and links to related exhibits. The links are shown as colored lines that sweep across the page and connect a series of exhibits. It's really a site I would happily spend quite a bit of time getting lost in. My favorite exhibit so far is the Lily Impeller, a sort of natural geometry propeller for immersing in liquids. I wonder if they will develop a Lily Impeller attachment for my hand mixer!