Quince and Quire

Using and storing children's art

The New York Times had an article about displaying children's art, and it got me thinking about what we do here. Each child has an art table in a dedicated art space, with lots of materials out and many more available with supervision. This means we end up with daily works of art. What to do with it all?

 

The most basic approach for the most basic art, such as these index card portraits, is to simply put them up on the bulletin board. I use a pin with a clip so that we don't poke a hole in the drawing.

 

For monthly favorites and seasonal themes, we have this very large frame from Michael Olaf. It has a birch frame and a long sheet of plexiglass that lifts out easily. I should have included a person in this photo to give you a sense of scale. You can figure it out by knowing that the two pictures on the bottom left are 9 x 12 inches. This frame hangs at a child's eye level, about three feet off the floor, so that the kids can see things easily and add art as they wish. 

 

Sometimes we use this little wood easel frame for tabletop display. 

Over in doll world, where my daughter keeps all the doll clothes and supplies that her grandmother and I have made for her, we have an informal display on the wall above the doll bureau. She chose a few of her favorite drawings of dancers and fairies and we arranged them spontaneously. 

One thing you will notice is that nothing is permanently framed. I have set aside a stack of things I particularly love, but because they are so often odd sizes, I need to take them to a frame shop to have them framed. I just haven't gotten around to it. In the meantime, this assortment of rotating display options seems to suit the children's prolific output. When they are tired of one drawing and ready to hang another, the older pieces get added to a giant bin, which I will sort through someday when I have time! At the very least, I do label each piece with names and dates.

 

Finally, we often like to give the art as gifts. Here my daughter made a picture for a good friend on her birthday. I sewed the drawing to the cover of a blank Moleskine sketchbook. Perfect to encourage more art!

What do you do with kids' art in your house?

Sick leave

We've got a stomach virus going through the household, which means lots and lots of laundry, cups and pots of tea, lavender compresses and rosewater mists, books by the fire and books in bed--and not much time to think about projects. I hope you all have a healthy week and I'll be back when we're all well!

Photographing snow crystals, part two

My third day of photographing snow crystals was so very different from the first two: I understood then how much temperature matters. It was so much easier to find and photograph the snowflakes when temperatures were closer to 30 degrees, as opposed to 10 degrees. I could hardly keep up with the beauty and multitude of each crystal! The first two photos are of snowflakes on a piece of plexiglass; the third is on my blue paper.

Here are a few books we have been enjoying during this snowy project.

The Story of Snow

Snowflake Bentley

Snow Crystals

The Snowflake

Photographing snow crystals

With our most recent snowstorm abating, but flakes still falling, I wanted to capture images of snow crystals. (Snowflakes are clusters of individual snow crystals.) I really needed my tripod but couldn't find it, and so these photos are the best an amateur like me could do with a macro lens and no tripod. I am no Snowflake Bentley, and that's okay.

I put a few sheets of dark blue and black paper outside for about 20 minutes (the crystals will melt otherwise) before I attempted to take photographs. The fibers in the paper look huge under the macro lens, almost like I was taking pictures of snowflakes on a shag rug. Next time, I would try taking photographs using a piece of plexiglass as a substrate.

I learned many things doing this, and I'll list them for you in no particular order in case you want to try taking similar photos.

1. Choose a smooth-grained dark piece of paper (or clear plexi) on which to capture the snow crystals. Let it sit outside awhile so that the crystals don't melt on it. 

2. Use a tripod and a macro lens.

3. Consider using manual focus over auto focus. My husband looked at my photos and said they would have turned out better with manual focus. However, I have poor eyesight and could hardly see the nearly-microscopic bits of snow, let alone determine whether I had them in focus, so I continued with the auto focus option.

4. Watch out for wind. Be patient, but act quickly when you spot a beautiful crystal. They often melt upon landing, or get an arm broken when another crystal lands on top.

5. Try taking photographs at intervals throughout the day. I noticed that the size and quality of the snow crystals changed as the day went on. Larger snowflakes were obviously easier to see and photograph.

My results are not spectacular; clearly I am no professional. (I increased the contrast in the photographs to make it easier to see the crystals.) The kids and I were thrilled nonetheless. It was magical to see these gorgeous bits of nature up close. 

This is one time where I would urge you to click on each photo to see it larger. 

Tomorrow I'll share some books we've enjoyed about snowflakes, including those that inspired me to attempt to photograph the crystals.

Simple snowflakes: 3

Thank you so very much for your comments and emails. Hearing from readers old and new gave me renewed confidence that what I am trying to do--in life, in art, in this blog--does matter. It's a difficult world, isn't it? We mourn our fellow citizens in Arizona (see Pat's blog for a beautiful post on this); our friends in Australia suffer through devastating floods; our friends in Haiti mark one year since the terrible earthquake, and still they suffer--and so it goes, all around the world. Sometimes I can hardly bear to think of it all. My scientist husband remarked to me that trying to make beauty will always be important in a world of hardship. So yes--we must help others, in every way we can, and we must also pursue Beauty, and have faith in its purpose. 

And so from those thoughts, onward to snowflakes, ephemeral and yet, en masse, powerful, as we have been experiencing in the past few days. They cover our land in a frigid blanket. They fall like feathers; they glitter. They sit dull and quiet; they whisper. They pull down power and leave us cold and dark, surrounded by white. And then, crystal by crystal, they vanish.

Last year I made sun prints of snowflake shapes, and I liked them so well I thought I'd share them now. I embellished the prints with white ink.  

For the complete post and how-to, see here. 

Simple snowflakes: 2

So there were supposed to be more photos with this one, but there aren't, because life got in the way. But this is so simple, indeed, that I think you get the idea. Take a paint chip. Trim. Punch. Affix to a card and write a nice note to someone you love. Enjoy the color variations. Maybe this would be fun with non-traditional snowflake colors. I see possibilities for Valentine's day too with a range of pinks and reds and some heart cut-outs.

Anyway, there's a lot of life getting in the way of blogging. I wonder sometimes if I should continue. I have so many ideas and projects, and I do a reasonable job getting most of them done, but finding time to synthesize ideas, present tutorials, photograph projects, and compose text to go with it really takes time. I find that I don't have time to comment on other blogs, and when I don't do that, then naturally other people don't comment here, which I understand. But then if there's no conversation going on, why do I do this? Does the world need this blog? I think not. Do I need it? I guess I must! 

I have been thinking about these issues more since Emily decided to stop writing her blog. Meanwhile, the delightful Ariadne, who is a loyal commenter here, just started her own. And Molly has a giveaway going at her blog in celebration of its third year. Each of these beautiful spaces adds to my creative world and gives me new ideas. Regardless of whether I keep this one going (and I will keep it going at least through this spring), I hope I give some of you new ideas too!

Simple snowflakes: 1

We are working on a snowflake "unit," if one can call it that. We do not home school, but we do spend a lot of time on art and science projects at home. This month we are focusing on the winter sky, and this week I'll share some easy ways to make art using the basic shape of a snow flake. 

For this project we chose to stencil stylized images of snowflakes on paper as a way to explore color, composition, and the idea of negative space.

You don't need much: we used a craft punch to make snowflakes; watercolors in tubes; a stencil brush; a pencil; and some paper.

Using a very small amount of paint, and a nearly dry brush, one brushes over the stencil (held down with a pencil or other stylus) with strokes that radiate outward. And that's it. Very simple, but with nice results. We used white paint on blue paper, and blue paint on white paper. 

Tomorrow we'll use a favorite prop from the hardware store with our snow flakes!

The handmades

Before we get into a week of winter sky-inspired crafts, I wanted to show you a few little things that I made this Christmas for the kids. 

I wanted to avoid buying more, more, more. I thought about how I could extend the play value of things they already had and, when possible, use materials that I had on hand. Here's what I came up with. 

I made this dress from my own pattern for one of my daughter's favorite dolls. The fabric was left over from a quilt project. I was so happy to finally do tidy, tiny seams on the arms and neckline. I know the beads are a bit much, but when you're six, the more the better!

For that same doll, I made a little sleeping bag to keep cozy on cold winter nights. It has been very popular so far for having play dates at other dolls' houses. I put that big pleat in to make it easier to get the doll in and out. The diamond-print fabric is by Lecien. 

Little brother got a sleeping bag for his friends too, and I'm showing it to you in all its rumpled reality. He really likes it so I'm happy to find it crammed next to his pillow with a gnome tucked inside. I made three berths to accommodate the many small friends he likes to carry around. The handles are good for swinging the friends around as though they are on the ferris wheel, which is important in my son's world. My mom made that wee cat on the left back in the '80s. The map-print fabric is Japanese and came from an off cut of a different project. I had no pattern and made things up as I went and it turned out fine.

And then I made a little scarf for my son using upcycled plaid flannel pajamas. The seams on the pjs were worn out and frayed despite repeated mending, but the fabric itself was still sound and soft. I added some star print flannel and a band of red. 

The last project was one my daughter and I did together for our local friends. We grew herbs this summer, dried them, and packaged them in glass jars to give as gifts. My daughter was so proud of this long-term project! It was fun and easy and brought so many nice memories of our summer garden.

Color book of the seasons

Everything I do begins with color. My very thoughts are infused with them. My clothes reveal color fixations; my garden endures color experiments. In my mind each day of the week has a color. My memory is less about what I did than what color I remember: the pale blue staircase to my great-grandmother's attic. The red rock cliffs of Mauritania. That puce green cardigan I wore to the coffee shop in college.

All my projects begin with a color that indicates emotion and purpose to me.

When I was a letterpress printer I used the Pantone color book to mix ink for the press. Now I'm a mother, and no longer a printer. But I still need to work with color, in whatever form I have time for. 

I was thinking about the coming year and the things I want to create, and the first thing I decided to make was my own version of a color book. Mine follows the logic of how I see the seasons in my part of the world (and in my own brain), with each leaf representing one month. In this photo above you see January, February and March.

January for me is a month of blue and white, grey and black, sparkle and dullness. For my January color strip, I painted two shades of blue and one of charcoal. My projects for the month, both with the kids and for myself, will involve things related to the winter sky. I'll be sharing them with you in the coming weeks.

If you want to make your own version of this little experiment--call it a color book, color wheel, or paint chip collection, as you like--just find some scrap paper and color. I used handmade paper and watercolors, and I painted my little squares without much concern for exactitude. My leaves are approximately 6 inches by 1 and 3/4 inches, and the size was dictated in part by the scraps I had available. 

I hope everyone is enjoying the new year, with new projects and new beginnings.