Dreamer

Remember a while back when Malia left some pictures and a little love note on my whiteboard? I recently had a dream that someone erased my whiteboard and when I woke up, I was super sad. As such, I decided I had better just buy a new one. Because sometimes my to-do list requires more than half the board. Malia has taken that as a sign that the first board can be filled with more art…and our DARE song incident report counter. 😂

In my defense, today's rendition of the DARE song was all Malia. It's usually me, but today I can honestly plead not guilty. 😉

Painting for Dummies

Art is not my forte. During my school years I always did well with straight up perspective drawings because they are all straight lines done with a ruler, but as soon as I was asked to add a tree or a bush to my straight road with a picket fence or add people to my square city blocks, I was done for. I can do a pretty convincing stick figure, but other than that, my artistic endeavors are laughable. I can paint crafts, but when it comes to straight up drawing or painting likenesses of anything, I’m pretty abysmal. It’s bad enough that when I was teaching school, my fourth graders used to make fun of me:

Me: {trying to draw something convincing on the chalkboard}

Students: Teacher, what is that?

Me: A dog.

Students: No, it’s not! It’s a marshmallow on a stick!

Me: {not even a little bit offended} Yeah, well, I do my best. {chuckle}

With that bit of background information, you will understand that I was pretty reluctant to participate when my relief society had a painting night. They assured us that anyone could do it, but still, when 9-year-olds laugh at your skills, you really have to face the fact that you are not an artist. However, I was saved from humiliation by the big old headache I had that evening. I would have preferred to be joking about my lack of artistic prowess with the ladies in the ward, but it was not to be. However, there were supplies left over after the activity and when offered to any who had not been able to attend, I actually decided to take advantage of that offer. Because I could give it a try and if it turned out horrible, at least I would have something to keep me entertained for a while, right?

But guess what? Turns out even I can paint by number. 😂 I created my masterpiece during conference this past weekend and I’m actually pretty pleased with the result. And now that it is done, you can’t even see the little numbers that led to my success. 😜

Amphibious Art

Earlier this week, Malia came home from a friend’s house having created a work of art featuring a frog. However, she was dissatisfied with the end result. She outlined her subject and decided (much too late of course) that she didn’t like the way it looked. So, she has spent the rest of the week creating froggy art that is more to her liking. Malia is not all that much like me personality wise, but in terms of having something turn out not quite as well as expected and needing to do it again RIGHT NOW, apparently, she is quite a bit like me!

Dessert Dinos

After a brief hiatus from drawing because she was struggling to get one aspect of her dragons just right, Malia has returned to her artistic endeavors. She has also begun exploring a new subject. I’m not sure where the idea came from, but for the past several days she has been drawing food dinosaurs. Yes, you heard me right. Food dinosaurs. And they are so stinkin’ cute! She’s as pleased as cupcakes and ice cream with her creations.

They Definitely Don’t Get This from Me

I am not a great artist. In fact, the only kind of drawings that I ever did well were perspective drawings of buildings and fences because that is all done with a ruler. I’m bad enough that when I was teaching elementary school, my students would make fun of me. It was all in jest because I was not offended at all, but still, it’s pretty sad. On the other hand, my children have a good deal of artistic skill. Nathan used to love to draw and took several semesters of art classes in middle school and really enjoyed them. Malia loves to draw and seems to have a good eye for detail. And Matthew has brought home several projects that I think are fantastic. In 5th grade he did a chalk drawing of some toucans that I like so much that we framed it and have it hanging on the wall.

This morning he happened to find a sketch that he did sometime during sixth grade. He is very proud of it, as well he should be. Unlike me, the kid can definitely draw more than a stick figure.

Daniel is really the only one of my kids who didn’t really enjoy drawing, but he can take a 3 foot square piece of paper and fold it into a dragon that has scales and individual claws, so I don’t think that he really needs a writing implement in his hand to create art. 😉

Art Reflects Life

Malia is a very crafty kind of a girl. She loves to color and draw, paint, cut, glue, etc. At school this week she was assigned to draw a picture of each of her vocab words. This was my favorite. It made me laugh!

Happy, Happy Birthday!

Nathan is one step closer to driving…and he’s already counting down. As of today, he has turned fifteen. We celebrated his birthday at my parents’ house on Sunday. He was all about the nonchalance, as any self-respecting fifteen-year-old boy would be.

Since today was his actual birthday and a holiday, we let him choose the activity for the day. He decided he wanted to go to the Church History Museum. We haven’t been since it was remodeled so it was a good choice. The kiddos played with some pioneer era toys, did some fake woodgrain painting, folded some origami cranes, wrote with a steel point pen dipped in ink and typed on an actual type writer (Malia were particularly intrigued with this one). We also saw some fantastic art by Jorge Cocco Santangelo. I'm not usually a fan of modern art. I tend to prefer more realistic styles. However, I really liked Santangelo's work. Although it is generally cubist in style, I was really taken with it. His use of light was particularly fascinating. Honestly, I came away with a few new favorite artworks. It was a fantastic outing.

For his birthday, Kevin and I gave him a pair of fancy, dress saddle shoes. He wore a pair for “The Music Man” last month and loved them enough that he wanted a pair of his very own. He will need to do some online searching to find a pair but he’s super excited. There has been no friend party as of yet (having a birthday that always falls on Memorial Day weekend can be a bummer socially), but we’ll see what he comes up with.

Two Things Guaranteed to Draw a Crowd

Great art and animals. We saw both today, although not at the same time.

This morning Kevin, Daniel, Nathan and I were able to go down to the BYU Museum of Art to see the "Sacred Gifts" exhibit. For those who may not know, this exhibit is comprised of artwork depicting the Savior, most of which is on loan from a number of churches (and a castle) in Denmark. Most of the pieces have never been removed since they were installed in the 1800's and it has been said that they will never be loaned again. Most of the artwork is familiar to the LDS population and seeing it in person was a wonderful experience. The fact that it is even here is pretty much a miracle so if you get a chance, go see it. It will be open until May.

This evening we piled everyone into the car and went to see the ZooLights. We had planned to go last Thursday but it snowed like crazy and the roads were hazardous so we hunkered down at home and introduced the boys to "A Christmas Story" instead. This was the first time we'd ever seem the ZooLights and we were pretty impressed by the display...and the crowds. Most of the animals were asleep, but the snowy leopard was wide awake and pacing which was pretty cool to see. The tiger was asleep, but it was still neat to see since he is usually pretty elusive when he's awake. As he slept he did some big tiger growls and Malia told us he was snoring. She also told me she wanted to lie down in the tiger's little house but I assured her she would get too cold. We saw some of the other big cats as well, all asleep but not hiding like they usually do. It was impressive enough that Malia wasn't even disappointed about not getting to see the elephants. 

On our way home he stopped at Build-a-Bear so Malia could stuff her reindeer that Santa brought for Christmas. It was pretty busy, but she was excited to be able to hug her "red nose reindeer."

So a super busy day. But a great one.