Paintin’ With Puddin’.

Thing 2 attends an art/music “workshop” on Wednesdays and this past week had an activity that he really, REALLY got into. Man did he ever love it. All of the kids that participated in Paintin’ With Puddin’ were totally, totally entranced.

Behold! Vanilla pudding with food coloring! And some spiky balls!

Something about the thick texture of the pudding was much more appealing than any kind of normal paint. Perhaps the subtle vanilla scent also helped – but Thing 2 wasn’t one of the kids who figured out that the “paint” was also delicious. He just totally, totally loved the texture of the pudding and moving it around the paper with the little ball. He used his fingers a bit, but the ball was the main “brush.”

Here’s his final product:

Verdict: A++ WOULD PAINT AGAIN.

Adventures with clay.

Play Doh is all well and good, but I want the boys to get some experience with actual art supplies, so I introduced Thing 1 to clay last week. Well, I use the term “clay” loosely as this was $5 for a whole BUCKET. And I do mean bucket. Oh man, did he ever love the clay. The only “snag” I didn’t forsee was that for a bucket of 50 colors, he felt compelled to create something with each color. Around the beginning, this meant using the cookie cutters and making dolphins and roses (for which he needed my help as this clay was much stiffer to roll out than Play Doh)… and by the end, he was just taking strips of clay and making “bracelets.” It certainly kept him busy! And he even asked for it again the next day!

It’s clay! In a bucket!

The clay.

He was very proud of this and proclaimed “Look! I made yucky!” It took his parents to explain that he meant GNOCCHI. Right. Makes much more sense than “yucky.”

I made these. Googly eyes included in the bucket.

Rose. I am holding it very carefully because of the thorns. (Yes, he made thorns! It’s hard to capture these wee details when my only available tool is my iPhone.) In the background you can see the googly eyes, rolling pin, and cookie cutters that came in the bucket.

Snake. I don’t really like snakes – in fact, I’m terrified of them, but I LOVE this snake because…

It has a bellybutton! Thing 1 has a bellybutton obsession – they’re on all of his drawings, and apparently, all of his sculptures. Bellybutton is one of the words he knows in Slovak (which his mom speaks), which I think is part of what makes them so fascinating for him.

Watch. This is kind of what the last half-hour’s worth of projects looked like. Various watches. A few bracelets, which were just like the watch but without the face.

Our House in the Middle of Our Street.

Thing 1 is going through a “House Period” in his drawings. Yesterday he drew my house, my friend “Nuna’s” house, my mom’s house, my brother’s house AND my imaginary sister’s house (being that I don’t have a sister, but he wanted to draw her house anyway, even though she doesn’t actually exist). Whew. The drawings are pretty awesome and kind of remind me of Paul Klee a little bit.

My friend “Nuna” and his “switching socks.”

My mom.

Me.

Daily Doodle. 10/15/09.

Oh my, I’m behind on my doodling. And my blogging. It’s got to be October. Why is the month of October always so difficult for me? I don’t know, but it is. It’s clinically impossible! It’s also half over, so I’ll keep slogging through and hopefully by November, I’ll have caught up with myself.

I’m currently re-reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, which is my favorite of all the books. (Though that is wicked tough to pin down, it still holds the top spot with Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell and Visions of Cody by Jack Kerouac rounding out the top 3.) I’ve also been reading 2666, but currently I’m stuck. I need to sit down with it some time when I’m not at work and get through the section detailing the crimes central to the plot and then I’ll be good. I’ve lost a lot of my nerve (or stomach) in my old age and I’m no longer as able as I used to be to read depictions of violence without feeling all weird in my unhappy place. I actually stopped reading a book about death a few months back, which is totally unheard of for me, but it was all crime scene crime scene crime scene and I couldn’t take anymore after 150 or so pages. Anyhow, I’ve returned to my favorite book as a sort of brain-cleanser, and I love being re-united with it.

I also love the cover, which I did a drawing of last week. No, it’s not upside down. Or rather, the bird *is* upside-down, but the drawing isn’t. (Also: the little pink lines in the middle are a sunset-sort of effect on the clouds which just did not translate at all when put through the scanner.)

Daily Doodle. 10/10/09.

I asked the Twitterverse what I should draw, and my dear Heidi suggested I draw her an owl. Here you go, one barn owl just for you. I’m pretty happy with the owl itself, but I’m not at all pleased with the blue background. I should have just gone with a “nonsense” color and not tried to make it fit the night sky or whatever was in my fool mind. Oh well. He’s a nice owl.

What about you? What would you like me to draw?

Daily Doodle. 10/9/09.

To prove that I’m not taking this Daily Doodle business *too* seriously, Friday’s drawing is a collaboration between Thing 1 & myself. He’s big into “connect the dots” lately, though the numbers are rarely, if ever, sequential. I end up asking him which one is next and usually there’s a logical pattern like 333 is after 53 because they both end in “3.” So, he draws the numbers and I connect them and it ends up looking “like spider webs.” The title of this piece is “The Spider’s Breakfast.”

Daily Doodle. 10/8/09

From yesterday. I’m still better at getting things done than getting things uploaded.

I hadn’t had a chance to get any drawing done at work, since Thing 2 has been on a nap embargo, so while we were watching Jim & Pam get married on The Office (Yay!), I asked Nuno what I should draw. His suggestion: A zebra taking a bath. Well, here he is. A zebra. Taking a bath.

Daily Doodle. 10/7/09

It was a rainy morning, but as soon as I finished drawing this little Morton Salt Girl, the sun came out! MAGIC! BEHOLD THE POWER OF ART.

Daily Doodle. 10/6/09.

“Frida’s Feet” : After talking a little bit about Frida yesterday, today’s doodle is from my favorite Frida Kahlo painting – “What the Water Gave Me.”  Hrm. The image I was working from was mirrored. Weird. I went and found the one copy of this online that was reversed L-R. Ha. Oh well, the only major detail that this affects in my little doodle is the stopper. And the injured/healthy feet, but that for some reason doesn’t bug me as much as the stopper pointing the wrong way.

New Feature: Daily Doodle.

I thought about calling this “Diurnal Drawing” since I didn’t read Infinite Jest for nothing, but in the end, even though it means “daily,” I can’t see the word “diurnal” without thinking “urinal.” (Or, as Thing #1 would call it – “wall toilet.”) So, “Daily Doodle.” Not so serious as to be a DRAWING which is something you do in CLASS and have a CRIT about. Also brings to mind “Daily Double” and then Celebrity Jeopardy, which brings me much joy. (Honestly, the Celebrity Jeopardy SNL skits make me laugh so hard that I have to hit pause every so often to avoid herniating.)

Hopefully this will indeed be a daily feature, or close to it. The drawings may not be uploaded and posted every single day, but hopefully there will be a drawing done and posted for each day by the end of the week. I badly need a more regular artistic practice and I don’t have time for any kind of morning pages, but I can aim to get a “doodle” of some kind done between naps and snacks at work. Hopefully, Thing 2 won’t remember how to open his door during his nap, or all bets are off.  Anyhow, posting things on the blog is really helpful as it helps keep me accountable. Or at least, I feel like I’m accountable, though I trust that my mother (and perhaps other readers as well) will actually start nagging me if I lag behind.

Anyhow! Here’s today’s drawing! It’s a fish! Drawn from a pan. Which begs the question: What are you cooking that you need a pan the shape of a fish?

Bonus! Here are some apples drawn last week.