How Much Art Can You Take

Dear Hazelita Kahlo and Henry Matisse, 
We've been having some pretty awesome art times lately.  A few weeks ago we created the greatest chicken legged monster with Henny and Hazelita hands for a tail.
We also explored color, mixing and learning warm colors and cool colors.  

Just noticed I bent one of the tail feathers.

You did the green tree and red fire

We tested how color impacts the way we see things by making drawings of things we love in the opposite color pallet.  We made red trees and blue green fire.  To my surprise when I asked you to write the words hot and cool on the paper I spelled them and you wrote it.  HUH!?!  We have worked on letters since day one but holy shock to see you knew all these letters and could write them down with very little direction from me.  I was so proud!  Last week we looked at different line types; zig zag, straight, wavy and curves/arcs.  

We went on a search of the house and yard to 
find these lines then we drew them ourselves.  We enjoyed looking at a painting by Juan Miro, The Man and the Dog and The Purple Robe, by Henry Matisse and talking 
about their lines and how they represented the people. You really liked finding the dog, took pride in discovering the different line types and seeing an entire new image by turning the painting upside down.  We read a little thing about what illustrators do for stories and picked out some of our favorites from your large book collection.  Then you picked a favorite toy to draw, thinking about the different lines as you went and here is the awesome result...It is a dinosaur and you on the bottom far left.

You had me stand up and model my arms.  Your first more than a line arms.

Learning about lines really improved your representational drawing skills tremendously.  This week I started off with the plan to read two versions of The Three Billy Goats Gruff and watch three versions on You Tube (a traditional telling, a horrible rap, and two kids using Legos).  We had a funny conversation about the worded descriptions of the troll and how the various artists depicted the troll.  Then I wanted you to become the artist and draw or sculpt your vision of what the troll would look like.  We planned for about five minutes and set to work on a red bodied blue armed and legged sculpture, reserving the plans for the head for after we saw the results of those. Then our plan got derailed when we were waiting for our red toilet paper roll, the trolls body, to dry we started painting.  I asked you to tell me a story while you painted and you did as I wrote it down.  

The deer is the yellow line on the right and you are the left just under the red line.

    "This is a forest.  This is a creek, that is at the bottom 
    of it.  There is a little boy who is hunting for a deer.  He
    wants to be friends with the deer because the deer 
    talks.  They meet each other and they being friends 
    now."  
You were really excited to use some different brush techniques, including scratching some paint away to make a fence along the creek and rolling the brush loaded with paint across the page to create the moving stream filled with mixed up colors.  As you painted and mixed colors you happily said, "Wow!  We are like REAL artists!"  

It was a great time together.  Hazel loved watching then trying finger painting herself.  Zell, you squashed your fingers up in the paint and I'd help you splat your hand on the paper then you'd scratch and stretch your fingers out and quickly spring them back in a fist over and over.  

I think you were unsure if you liked it or not, but you seemed to love your finished results.  

They both live on the fridge now.  Henry congratulated you on your first painting on the fridge and made sure I wrote the date and your age on the back as I have with him time and again.  The red toilet paper tube was forgotten, as were our poor troll's legs and arms but we had a simple, great time.  I love learning with my babies.  I can't wait for art time this week. 
Love, Mama