Artists in Training

In my mental calendar, January is the month for finishing up inside projects because February will show itself quickly and suddenly I will be in the middle of garden planning and seed starting. I will also have had enough of *staying inside* and will be pruning, raking, cleaning up from wind storms and hunting for any sign of spring. I know this about myself.

And yet, I also know that I never completely finish up everything in January, because what fun is that? At the end of the month, I know I will still have unfinished knitting projects. Which is all right, because around these parts, it still rains in February.

S’ok. I can still *garden* inside. Doesn’t this fabric look LUSCIOUS? Check out those beans! And those peaches! Figs! I can’t wait to show you what this is going to be.

All of our children love doing art and handwork. I love to encourage them, but admittedly find the discipline of sending them to clean up afterwards not so fun. In any case, the 3 and 5 year olds played with oil pastels yesterday. I love these crayons! They are so fat, so bright, so smudgy beautiful.

I’m not that creative. I don’t often come up with original crafty or artsy ideas. I’m also not even that good at any of it. But I love the process. Someday I’ll have all eternity to learn to draw and watercolor. In the meantime, I use Atelier Art for my children and a crazy amount of craft books and blogs for ideas for myself.

I love teaching my children *real* art. That is, rather than a book of cut and paste, I like providing construction paper, scissors, glue and instruction. I don’t much care for crafts that someone else did, and all that is needed is a photocopier. Easier, yes. And even though I am thankful for patterns, I do think the typical “art” for preschoolers via workbooks and such hinders imagination.

Even a three year old can play with raw materials. Going to an “ingredient” store that is locally owned and operated is way fun: an art supply store, a fabric store, a bead store, a yarn store…. These places have people passionate about their craft and LOVE to share techniques, supplies and encouragement. It beats the bigger label stores by a mile, where I usually end up in a conversation similar to this:

“Can you tell me where the jump rings are?”
(wide eyed)
“You know, the beading supplies?”
“Oh! Let me see…aisle 12B….hmmm…(he starts walking me there)…now what did you want? Hmm….it must be here somewhere….what do they look like?…..“

I enjoy the kids art program very much. They have learned about all sorts of different media and techniques, and been able to showcase their very own talent and imagination. We usually pick one piece of artwork for the year that we like best, and frame it. Most have been entered into the county fair, and the acknowledgment and ribbons from objective parties makes these children even more proud of their hard work.

Their finished products do NOT get thrown out. They are learning about different artists, as well, which works for me because as much as I love Charlotte Mason’s ideas of a monthly “artist study”, I can never seem to make that a reality.

As for me, I have several *almost finished* projects to share soon. It’s good for the children to see that mommy has a creative side, also. I don’t stress about getting any of my projects done in a certain timeframe; I just pick at them here and there when I can. After all, if something isn’t done in time for this Valentine’s Day, it will probably be finished just in time for next year’s! Fifteen or thirty minutes of drawing or knitting a day adds up to well over an hour at the end of the week. I know if I sent my children away during the day I’d get a lot more of these finished, but….right now, they are the masterpieces in progress 🙂

I’m leaving comments open again. Managing my time with blogging is an artform as well. I need to step carefully.