Painting with wet canvas

When I grow up I want to be an artist.  I find that saying that makes it more real and less of a wish.  I do what I can on my own, but taking classes is tough with little kids.  I haven't done much more than the occasional Saturday workshop at the local community college.  When I heard about the online watercolor tutorial at wetcanvas.com I jumped at the opportunity to have a little class structure and feedback, but I also work at my own pace after the kids are in bed.  It is perfect for my life right now.  We are in the middle of week three right now.  Each week Virgil posts a lesson and an assignment and those who are participating post their work and comments on the homework thread.  The tutorial is on painting buildings loosely and colorfully.  If you check out the tutorial thread you'll see that it is extremely colorful.  There is no attempt at all to have colors realistic.  I like it.  Here's what I've done so far.

He has us start with a photo and make a sketch to get the perspective and values right and establish our "artistic intent" and center of interest.

Here is my first painting.  It is only 5 x 7 inches, pretty small.  It was tricky to get the perspective right on something so small.  I used my half off coupon to Micheals to buy some bigger paper for next week.  I wanted to show the evening light bouncing around under the overhang of the front porch and reflecting off the side of the house on to the ground.

Here's my sketch for week two.  I got some very complimentary comments on it.  I felt all warm and fuzzy.  I've got it sketched out on my watercolor paper and I'll get to painting soon.  I'll show it to you when I'm done.

I'm having a great time and learning a lot.

Halloween... and then some

While some have moved on to Christmas already I still wanted to sum up our Halloween.  The celebrations went on and on.  As Buddy Boy said it was just party, party, party all weekend long.  Friday morning I made gingerbread skeletons for the bake sale at the school carnival.  I love them almost as much as the ninja-bread men.

School let out early each day this week for parent teacher conferences (well timed based on my observation of extremely excited first graders in the classroom on Monday) so we took off for a pumpkin farm.  There were rides...

and straw bales to climb on...

and EXTREMELY large pumpkins...

and best of all a pumpkin blaster.  You could shoot mini pumpkins out of the air powered pumpkin blaster at the targets or the old truck out in the field.  If you hit one of the pumpkins on the truck you get and extra shot.  Dad got an extra shot.

After the pumpkin patch we dressed up for the school carnival.  Minutes before we were to leave My Girl absolutely and completely rejected the fairy costume I had made.  She wanted to be a ninja like her brother, so here she is, the Pink Ninja, complete with sparkly shoes.

Saturday was the trunk or treat at church.  We were rather late since My Girl fell asleep.  I didn't want to wake her.  We got there in time to collect a bit of candy and see some of the great costumes and car decorations.  Each year I am impressed.

Monday morning was full of costume parades.  Here is Buddy Boy's class.  His teacher was Harry Potter.  I really liked the wheel made from duct tape.  It's probably hard to find a good wheel costume in the stores.

The teachers really got in to the spirit of the event dressing as different characters from the Harry Potter books.  I especially liked the sorting hat.

I left school early to make it to preschool for their parade.  Each year they dress up, trick or treat at the office, and then sing their Halloween songs for the parents.  It is all pretty cute.  This time the fairy costume was the top choice.

After school we finally got around to carving the pumpkins.  Buddy Boy has enjoyed the fact that he looks a little like a Jack o'lantern himself this year with so many teeth missing or partially grown in.

There was some intense concentration.

And bunny ears.

I wondered if what used to be the main event would be rather anticlimactic.  I shouldn't have worried.  They were more than excited.  It was a lot of fun to go with friends around the neighborhood.  My Girl was a little bit amazed at the whole experience.  After each door she would run back and say, "They gave me a treat!", completely thrilled with the idea.  The fact that it happened again and again and she got to do it with one of her best friends was just too much.

By the time we got home they just dropped, ate a little candy, and went to bed early.  I call that a success.

Poetry on Police Jones

While My Girl and I were making jack o lanterns with hula crowns and blue birthday hats, Buddy Boy decided to write some poetry.  Check it out on the Police Jones website.

Lemonade

I like lemonade.  No secret.  My Girl likes to make lemonade and we set up a stand in the kitchen and sell it to each other and the stuffed animals. 

We have two lemon trees in the backyard.  One is quite large and has plenty of lemons.  They are still mostly green, but coming along nicely.  The other is a small dwarf meyer lemon tree that we got as a wedding gift.  It is well traveled having moved from California to Utah and back.  Now that it is back in it's native land it seems happy, but is rather neglected.  I actually got better and bigger lemons in my Utah living room where I had to baby it with special light, just enough water, and polinate the blossoms with a paint brush.

I've discovered that while I like the basic lemonade I like variations even better.

Basic Lemonade
2 quarts of water
Juice of 2 or 3 lemons about 2/3 cup
2/3 cup sugar disolved in 1 cup water

Variations
1.  Sweeten with rose syrup instead of sugar.  This is great hot or cold.

Rose syrup is bright pink and smells like roses.  The flavor is fantastic in small doses.  You don't need much.  I had a bottle I got from a room mate ages ago.  I think she got it from a friend.  That bottle said made in Lebanon.  I finally used it up and found more at the International market not far from here.  Even though it is called an international market I believe the family who runs it is Lebanese so I was pretty sure to find it.  They also have Halva, a wonderful sesame treat.

2.  Muddled mint, cinnamon stick, and anise.

We were out for lunch and the lemonade was so delicious.  The waitress told me what had been added.  I don't know anything about the amounts or how it is prepared.  I'll need to experiment.  You could see the mint floating in the pitcher.  I could just add the extra ingredients to the lemonade and mix it around a bit or I could make a simple syrup infused with the cinnamon and anise.  Any suggestions?

What's your favorite lemonade.
 

Reading

Here's what we've been reading lately.  By "we" I mean she.  My girl is starting to read.  We figured out Buddy boy could read when at four years old he asked us to explain "all you can eat pizza".  He'd read it off an ad at the pizza place.  Until that point I didn't know he could read much of anything.  I guess the Electric Company he had been watching worked. After that we got him books at the library to read himself.  He loved it and still does.

My girl wants to read now, but she won't watch Electric Company so I guess I'll teach her.  We talk about letters and their sounds as we do our thing during the day and read books like the sound box books below.  I've also done a little with word families.  Books like Play with "i" and "g" and the flip a word books by Harriet Ziefert  help with that.  Now she is starting the Bob books.  She is very excited to have books that SHE can read.

Buddy Boy has been reading too of course.  He is mostly interested in non-fiction.  He has really been enjoying the Magic Treehouse Research Guides.  We've read about ancient Rome, Greece, and Egypt, and pirates.  Over the summer he read a lot about gems and crystals and caves.  I love our library.  Along with all this informational and hightly educational non-fiction, he reads Asterix and Obelix, Calvin and Hobbes, and Tin Tin.   It was fun to watch him make the connection between the facts about Julius Cesear conquering the Gauls and Asterix.  There's a Tin Tin movie coming out this December, but I think it might be too intense for the kids.  We'll watch it on DVD in a few years.

Spooky food

The other day after school the kids asked for a spooky food snack.  Here is what I came up with.

Deviled egg eyeballs.  Spooky enough for you?

p.s.  My girl is wearing the original all-day-all-night gown.  The neck kept growing and was nearly down to her navel so I used part of a shirt she had outgrown to fix the problem.  The white is a cotton knit eyelet and not stretchy at all.  So cute.  It makes the whole thing look better.

Ninja

It all started here, in Ninjago, the land of the Lego masters of spinjitsu.  We bought the minifigures.  We bought the books.

Cole DX - ninja of earth

Then I saw the cookie cutters and couldn't resist.  Because really, who can resist a ninja-bread man?

Now that it's almost Halloween it is time for costumes.  Buddy boy has been asking for a ninja costume for quite awhile.  So here it is, finally, ninja moves and all.

I found the black knit for a great deal.  The only drawback is that it is 100% polyester.  Or maybe that's a plus.  His costume will last forever.  Archeologists will ponder over the significance of the golden dragon.  I used pants and shirts we already had as a pattern.  Thankfully these things do not require a precise fit.  The head thing is made from three more or less bullet shaped pieces sewn together to make a hat/hood/mask/whatever you call it, with a gap in the front one for his face, and ties coming out the sides that cross in front and tie in back.  I drew and cut freezer paper stencils for the dragon pattern and painted them using metallic gold fabric paint.

If only you could see the perma-grin under that ninja mask.

School pictures

Here he is last year.  My sweet boy.

And this year...

Who's little gap toothed ragamuffin is that?

So I have to wonder.  Is My Boy pulling a little Calvin here or is Bill Watterson just really tapped in to six year old boys.

Tablets

At school Buddy Boy is studying Ancient Rome in one of the afternoon centers.  Each center includes four lessons on a topic.  They are all taught by parents.  Last year I taught potions to the lower grades (K-2).  This year some of the lower grade center topics include simple machines, cooking, gardening, theater, outdoor games, and digital photography.  There are others, but I don't remember them right now.  The upper grades usually have different topics.

Back to Rome.  Last week they talked about architecture and aquaducts.  This week it was about Roman numerals and Latin.  They made writing tablets which were pretty cute.  My girl saw Buddy Boy's and wouldn't let it go, so we made one for her.  They are pretty simple.  Two cardboard rectangles and a cardboard frame of the same size, modeling clay and a little bit of lacing to hold it all together like a book.  There you have it, the original laptop.

The modeling clay doesn't need to be very thick and may be better if it's thin.  At the most it is the thickness of the cardboard.  As you can see we didn't have enough of any one color for My Girl's tablet, but that's OK.

Satchmo - one more time

Last year I made a paper cut for my brother.  He had requested a Louis Armstrong picture.  I made one and it got lost when I used it as a sample for the school silent auction last fall.  It only took me a year to get around to the replacement.  It is quite different.  I hope he likes it.