Mother's Day collaging

One of the my favorite parts of working with so many cutouts these days, is the unexpected interest of my son. As I'd mentioned in this puppet show post, Archer and I have been using construction paper for spontaneous art-making a lot lately. On Mother's Day, I began noodling around with my scissors and the various envelopes from my birthday cards. As I'd hoped, once I began cutting shapes, Archer's interest was piqued, and he began participating too.

We assembled various things with the scraps lying all over my desk, and then I eventually went back to work on my book illustrations. To my surprise, Archer did not immediately go back to watching his Mario Bros. instructional video. He instead grabbed crayons and more scraps, and created this raccoon and a Mom puppet. I did add the eyes and nose to complete the raccoon, but the Mom was entirely his own assembly. Check out the shoes!!

A Painted Pot Mother's Day

I have been going to the Painted Pot for almost three years with my son, but I have never once painted anything. I guess I was intimidated by the unforgiving free-hand painting. My expectations for myself were too high, and I couldn't bring myself to risk it. Seems so strange to encourage my son to grab a brush and go nuts, yet I did not even try.

After participating in the Empty Bowls Project, however, I was ready to enjoy myself and just go paint. So for Mother's Day gifts for Archer's grandmothers, my husband, Archer and I went back to the Painted Pot. This time, I painted! Mine is the shaker with the birds. I can't wait to go back again.

Empty Bowls Project

I was recently invited to participate in the Empty Bowls Project, here in Bay Ridge. To raise funds for local food pantries, several artists came together to paint ceramic bowls, that would then be fired and put up for sale at the event.

To me, glazing pottery seems very spontaneous, with not a lot of room for error. I wasn't sure what I was going to create, and I felt fairly nervous when I arrived to paint. Although it did, in fact, prove to be difficult to hold my brush steady, and I do wish I would have extended some of lines and used a brighter blue, I really enjoyed myself. It was actually quite relieving to wing it and move on.

This is my bowl after it was fired. I had also tried an interesting brush technique on the sides of the bowl, but it sold before I arrived at the event, and I'm not sure how that part turned out.