artsy fun

Reminder: Creativity is the Point

I gave an introduction at a family painting class this morning and I think I struck a chord with the kids and parents there.

I hadn’t really thought about what to say, hadn’t actually planned on doing an intro, so I ended up talking about how the fun of creativity was the point of the whole thing. And if the kids (or the adults) we’re getting stressed about how their painting was going, it was ok to turn it into a whole different thing. In fact, they could just smear paint around on the canvas if they wanted – as long as they enjoyed doing it.

I swear I felt a sense of relief in the room.

And when I went around a little later, several kids had done their own thing – some making delightfully glorious messes and others just veering off on their own course. I was delighted to see it.

And one kid was struggling through the process of creating the planned piece so I helped him take a break from the project and try something else.

I felt like I made a connection, did some important work, like what I said had mattered.

I love this feeling.

Art experiments

I’m trying to get a certain effect with small painted flowers but I haven’t figured out exactly how to do it yet.

I can’t really describe what I’m trying to do but I’m content with moving paint around on paper until I get what I’m looking for.

And even the results that aren’t quite right are still very fun.

Two small paintings of flowers laid down on a wooden patio railing.
Two small paintings resting on a wooden patio rail. The painting on the left has a cluster of thumbprint sized flowers in pink, orange, yellow and blue on white paper with dots in the background. The one on the right is on a cardboard card with a sprinkle of tiny flowers in pink, blue, yellow, and orange on the right side against a background of thin black lines.

Today, I’m telling stories

A photo of a large white building that houses a museum. Trees, grass and flowers are in the foreground.
A photo of Torbay History House – a museum and activity centre for community heritage activities. The white two story building with a roofed, wrap-around porch is in the back of the photo with an expanse of green lawn, flowerbeds, and trees.

I was lucky to be invited to tell stories at Torbay History House today – two 45 minute sets of animal stories for kids.

Since I knew that my audience would be very young, I decided to intersperse my stories with some action songs and it has worked out marvellously – the kids and their grown-ups had a great time. And so did I!

Well, we did in the first set anyway, I’m just heading in for my second set now.

Decisions, decisions – a good problem to have ;)

This is the kind of evening I dream of when I feel tense or when it feels like the winter will never end.

I’m sitting on my patio on a warm summer night, deciding whether to draw or to read while I drink my (non-alcoholic!) beer.

A photo of a table with a bottle, an ereader and a sketchbook and markers on it.
Image description: a angled-down view of a small red patio table with a bottle of Corona Sunbrew non-alcoholic beer (which is covered in condensation), an e-reader in a blue and gold patterned case, and an open sketchbook with six markers on top of it. In the background there’s another patio chair, the bottom of the railing, and the end of a string of warm white lights.

Colouring sheet!

I created my first colouring sheet for grown-ups yesterday and I am thrilled with how it turned out.

I had been working on this in my head for days but, as usual, I didn’t solve it by thinking, I made it ‘work’ by starting to draw something and then course-correcting as I went.

Glerg, I hate when I learn the same lesson over and over again in the one week.

a photo of a colouring sheet for adults that has a large star in the centre the with layers of patterns within and surrounding the star are curved sections containing different patterns.?
Image description: a photo of a colouring sheet for adults that has a large star in the centre the with layers of patterns within and surrounding the star are curved sections contacting different patterns.