Friday, April 6, 2012

Happy Easter! (And musings on drawing with kids)

Happy Easter everyone!

I try not to bring in religion to the blog too much, but I do hope you don't mind me celebrating some of the more important holidays for me. Easter is of course a big one, so I'd like to wish you all a blessed weekend.

I wanted to do a little illustration with an Easter theme, and N. of course wanted to join in. She never misses an opportunity to draw with me. In fact, it's one of her favorite things to do.

Here are a couple of things that I noticed when it comes to doing that:


  1. No matter how stocked her crafting station is, as long as my supplies are out they're the only thing she'll use.
  2. She will finish her work first, and then she absolutely must help me with mine. 
I used to worry and fret about her using some of my more expensive materials, but then...

I want her to feel free to experiment with art supplies and have fun with them, not feel like they're so precious she can't use them. She should also enjoy doing it, not worry about what I'm going to do if she adds something to my picture or spills some water on my watercolor.

So, with a herculean effort, I let go of it all. I let her use any and all supplies she wants (unless it's dangerous of course - no hot glue gun yet!), however she wants to, including on the picture I was working on. If it's something I really want to do alone, I wait until after she goes to sleep.

Today, we did these -

A long-haired girl on an egg hunt:



A bunny on a field:


Did you notice her addition to the bunny? She said it was a girl bunny and she needed a hair bow (which N. promptly supplied):


This hair bow makes me so happy. How could I ever say no to adding a hair bow to a bunny?

What are your plans for the weekend? 

6 comments:

  1. Seeing your daughter's art makes me happy, too! I love her drawing...look at all of those little colored eggs! And she was right, the hair bow was the perfect addition! That's a really good bunny, btw, awesome shading. I agree, I've always let my girls use good quality art pencils and paints and markers, so they'll know I value their efforts and so they can get the feel of good quality art supplies. And the results are so much better with the higher quality stuff! Have a wonderful Easter weekend!

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  2. The hair bow is lovely and of course a bunny need one of those! Keep enjoying Easter! :-)

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  3. What adorable art! I'm missing my family this easter

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  4. GAH, the bunny is adorable. And of course that's how long hair looks. That's how it looked to me when I was that age too

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  5. Very sweet! I do love how you include your daughter - it takes extra patience to add kids into some of these kinds of activities! But doing so makes for some great memories!

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  6. Awww! That hair bow is precious! I think you've made a wise decision! They grow up so fast and what memories you'll have with shared art projects! I also think you are helping her to grow as an artist by not limiting her!

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