martinzoo

This morning I had to pick my bil up from surgery (He’s ok). And the whole way there I kept being awed by the spectacular color of the Fall foliage this year. This is the best year I’ve seen in many. And my bil and I marveled all the way home.

Then, when I got home, someone had sent me this video featuring Sir Ken Robinson speaking about creativity being killed in the public school system.  And the two events, plus my creative nature, converged, and pointed towards a day of artistic pursuits.

While I was picking up my bil, GB was home with my dh dutifully working on his online German course. So that by the time I got home he was ready for a break. While he was outside on the swing set, I got all my art materials out. And when he came in we painted. I got our project ideas from the amazing woman on this site. I love the way she explains her processes.

Usually, GB does not want to do ‘art’ but if you ask him if he wants to ‘paint’ he always says yes. It’s all in the phraseology.

This first picture was done on watercolor paper. He painted the sky and the grass first with watercolors. Then, while that was drying, he painted a piece of copy paper with fall colors, let that sheet dry, then cut it into little triangles. He then cut a tree trunk with branches and roots out of black construction paper. After all the paint was dry, he glued the tree to the grass line, then started gluing on all the leaves. I think it turned out fabulous. And it makes me smile EVERY time I look at it.

This next picture was done with our pastels. It was very basic shapes which he filled and then smudged. The tree trunks were done with clean brown lines. And we used another sheet of paper to make a mat for his picture. This is my dh’s favorite picture.

GB really enjoyed it. And it was nice to spend an afternoon in artistic oblivion.