Ashes to Ashes

Last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, and as we left Mass with ashes on our foreheads I had the idea for our next art project: charcoal drawing. Charcoal is always one of the first tools used in college art classes, and I thought it would be fun to let my girls experience the shading and smearing properties that make charcoal so unique.

So I laid a few large pieces of butcher paper out on the floor and gave each kid a

piece of charcoal. At first Rebecca set to writing the letter "E" and drawing faces, her two most frequently drawn symbols when coloring. Elliot was more interested in the roll of butcher paper and went about trying to unravel it. When I showed Rebecca how to smear the charcoal she had already put down on the paper, she started make finger prints and handprints all over the paper, covering her palms with black.

Rebecca made an exciting discovery when she decided to lay the charcoal on its side and fill the paper with black chalk: as she colored she revealed the edges of the square tiles beneath the butcher paper. Even though Elliot didn't seem very interested in the charcoal, she still ended up covered in it. We went straight to the tub after this project!

Crown of Thorns

This week's project, like that of the previous week, was largely decided by the calendar. Last week's was to celebrate Valentine's day; this week's was in preparation for Lent. We did this project last year, though Rebecca played a minor role in its creation. This time, however, she helped with the entire process. Elliot mostly observed.

So enough already, what did we do? The girls and I created a crown of thorns out of a standard salt-dough recipe and a bunch of toothpicks. I found this idea on the Internet last year as I was searching for ways to teach my children about Lent and what we do to prepare for Easter. It is a sort of countdown, much like paper chains are for Christmas. In this case the child pulls a toothpick out of the crown for every good deed he or she does, such as helping to unload the dishwasher or sharing a favorite toy with a younger sibling. When all the toothpicks have been removed, it's time for Easter. Then the crown gets decorated with flowers and jewels and anything beautiful to represent the glory of the Resurrection!

The process for this project was a lot different than previous projects have been. Instead of paints and stickers the girls got the chance to measure and stir and knead the dough on the kitchen counter. Elliot once again tried to take a taste, but the salt was too much for her (one cup salt to four cups flour). After we rolled the dough into three "eels" as Rebecca described them, Rebecca helped braid the crown and stick the toothpicks in. One hour in the oven and presto, out came a crown of thorns to help our family keep the Lenten season. I must say that it makes an interesting conversation piece when having friends over for dinner!

Valentines

Our most recent project was putting together Valentines for the girls to give to the other kids at daycare. We walked into Michael's looking for ideas, and of course they had everything under the sun. I looked at a make-your-own Valentines kit, complete with ribbon, doilies, etc, but I couldn't really see two toddlers replicating the cute Valentines displayed on the back of the box. Instead we picked up a small pack of assorted Valentines stickers and headed home. Since Rebecca was born I have slowly amassed a fair selection of paint, stamps, markers and colored construction paper at home, so I figured I'd add some heart-shaped stickers, put them all together, and end up with a fine a multimedia valentine project.

My approach to introducing children to art tends to be more experimental than instructional. This may be partly because my kids are so young, but it's also because I think it's important for them to get to know the materials in their own way before labeling certain uses as correct and incorrect. Rather than have finished products that all resemble one another almost exactly, art is a subject where a child's own personality can dictate the final masterpiece.

That having been said, can you tell which Valentines were done by a three-year-old and which were done by a one-year-old? I will make a disclaimer that I had to interfere with Elliot's creative process a bit because she refused to leave the stickers that she placed on the hearts there for more than a minute at a time, and determined as I was to have something for her to give her friends on Valentine's Day, I had to remove the hearts from the table before she could take everything off of them. While she didn't quite understand the ink-stamp process, she did have lots of fun with the paint, not to mention the crumpling. Lots of crumpling. Luckily a heavy book was able to help with that. Rebecca filled her hearts with lots of stamps, stickers and paint, though she did seem to want to match the red stickers with the red hearts instead of letting them contrast. Next it's time to glue the hearts onto a supportive backing and attach something sweet. Happy Valentine's Day!