A Passion for Paint

I did enjoy myself yesterday.

One of the things that I transported to Coventry when I took my daughter to start the University phase of her life, was a large print from Ikea with a mathematical theme (reduced to next to nothing I believe - mathematical themed posters clearly do not have wide appeal). The print was packaged against a cardboard back and wrapped in cellophane. Once we had hung it on the wall of the room she will call home for the next 36 weeks, I put the packaging back in my car to take away and recycle for her. I was neglectfully remiss with my recycling. Two weeks later and the large rectangle of cardboard was still in the back of my car.

Yesterday, it came out. Not to be recycled. To be reused.

I was thinking about the Sylvanian Families Twitter Party that I will be hosting next Tuesday and wondered if there were any decorations or scene setters I could use to help create a party atmosphere. Blackcurrant Cafe is one of the many lovely playsets available from Flair so I thought that I could easily give our dining area a Sylvanian makeover. I used the cardboard to make a Cafe sign (no menu as yet!) and had enough left for a little signpost as well.

I used some old acrylic paints that belonged to my daughter, Liberty, back when she did her Art GCSE. Liberty always found academic subjects easy but Art really challenged her. She did not possess much in the way of natural ability but her dogged determination to succeed saw her achieve a grade C. The lone C may look like a failure amongst the A*s that she was awarded for just about everything else, but for me, that C represents a huge triumph. I am incredibly proud of her for that C.

One of Liberty's Art coursework projects is still lying around in the garage somewhere. It is a huge, ugly purple flower thing without many redeeming features. It was, however, the exact shade of purple I wanted for my Blackcurrant Cafe sign. I didn't think it would be too difficult a task to mix red and blue to make purple. How wrong I was. By some strange transformation, red and blue made brown. I tried again and made an equally dingy shade of yuck. I tried several times, mixing together different proportions on the off chance some magic would happen. It didn't. Could the fact that the paint was some 7 years old have had an effect? My 15 year old confidently took over to save me from myself ... and made a lovely vivid russet! I am not one who gives up easily. Eventually, using a lot of red and a little of one of my reject shades I made a colour that, compared to it's predecessors, looked acceptable. I amalgamated all my previous attempts to make a grimy pot of gloom - perfect for Hallowe'en crafts.

By comparison with the mixing, the painting bit was easy. In the dim light of energy saving light bulbs I thought it looked pretty good. In the cold light of day I feel less inclined to run away to Paris to start a new life as an artist but in terms of creating a bit of Sylvanian atmosphere, I think I achieved my objective. And I loved it. It was so relaxing and the sensory pleasure of slopping the paint about is something I'm sure I will never tire of.

There are strong indications that my little boy shares my passion for paint. This makes me very happy!

Aquarelle

I am a big fan of Ravensburger Jigsaw Puzzles so I was very interested to take a look at their new watercolour painting sets, Aquarelle, that won Best New Toy in the creative category at the 2012 London Toy Fair.

Aquarelle is an innovative variation of traditional painting by numbers. The sets come in three sizes; mini, midi and maxi and in a variety of different designs including animals, flowers and city scenes. I was sent a mini set to review with a rose design.

The set was nicely presented in a box without wasteful excess packaging and included a mixing palette, fine paintbrush and the three primary colours that can be mixed dropwise to create the full range of shades required to complete the project. The instructions give advice on how to add water to make the colours lighter and more opaque to create colour graduation effects and how to mix the different shades.

There is an example of a finished picture for guidance but the project is fairly open to creativity within the constraints of the image to give the potential for a limitless range of results.

Unlike oils and acrylics that are used on traditional painting by numbers sets, watercolours dry quickly and should be applied quickly to maintain a wet working edge and avoid unwanted dried dark edges. This means that beautiful results can be achieved relatively quickly.

The images are printed onto the card with colour repellent lines which guarantees that the finished piece will be crisp with no loss of detail.

Our watercolour masterpiece

As a general rule, I tend to encourage my children towards crafts that are messy and spontaneous rather than the prescribed versions. However, for children that are more results driven, this is a perfect way to be creative yet be sure of a high standard of finished product. I did find the little bit that I was permitted to do (small blue flowers top centre!) was very relaxing and I can imagine an adult market for Aquarelle as stress relief.

This particular rose design has the potential for a perfect home made mother's day gift. (If you're reading this mum, on March 18th,  just remember whose hand it was that painted the little blue flowers top centre!)

The Gallery - Week 77 - Colour

My daughter brought home her first art work from Nursery School this week. I was more excited than she was. I congratulated her on her choice of beautiful autumn colours and asked her what it was. She shrugged nonchalantly and said "It's just paint". I guess sometimes you're simply not that inspired!

Beauty and the Resurrection of an Old Hobby

Every mum thinks their daughters are beautiful.

I certainly do.

But I've never thought of Taylor as 'beautiful' in quite the way that my eyes have been opened to this week. 'Beautiful' as in Super Model Beautiful.

Taylor is cute and gorgeous but she has no interest in make up and fashion. She dresses for comfort, keeps a completely natural look and would rather bang out some rhythms on her drum kit or go sailing than buy new clothes.

Taylor has a friend, Kirsty, who is a talented young art student. Kirsty enlisted Taylor's help with her current art project which is an exploration of Fame -  the glamour and the pitfalls. She dressed Taylor and some other friends up and had them pose for a series of photographs. Looking at the set of images that resulted amazed me - not only for Kirsty's artistic vision and the execution of it but how incredibly beautiful my little Taylor looked. Simply breathtaking.

Kirsty has kindly given me permission to use the images of Taylor and I have selected four of my favourite glamorous shots plus the contrasting depiction of the dark side of celebrity.

I have to thank Kirsty, not just for allowing me to use her photos or for showing me my daughter in a completely new light but for inspiring me.

As a young woman with my first SLR camera I used to experiment with photographing my sister in poses that ranged from glamorous to the macabre. We had such a lot of fun doing it. I don't know why it never occurred to me before to resurrect that particular hobby using my own daughters as subjects. We talked about it last night after watching Jackass as a tribute to the late Ryan Dunn and came up with loads of ideas.

I have a camera, I have ideas, I have willing models. I can't wait to get started!

An Artist in the Family

I was very proud when two of my academically gifted children opted to do an Art GCSE after school. Neither of them had any real artistic talent but slogged their way through the course to each achieve C grades. I think the life lesson they learned persevering with something that did not come easy was extremely valuable.

I have always enjoyed art. I loved watching "Paint Along with Nancy" in the seventies with the slightly mad Nancy Kominsky who showed us that anyone can create a masterpiece. I would have liked to do an Art qualification but I hated the Art teacher at my school which put me right off. I did a one off class in still life pencil drawing as an adult but there is only a limited amount that anybody can learn in one session. I love to draw and paint within my limitations and have a whole cupboard in my garage dedicated to art and craft materials.

I makes me so happy to see my three year old experimenting with paints, chalks, felt tips, pencils and crayons. She is starting to produce some really characterful pictures.

Unfortunately, her experimentation sometimes goes down a route that is not entirely acceptable. This is what happened in the few moments when I left her and her brother playing as I put a load of washing in the machine. She decided to colour him in.

Apologies for the standard of the photography - obviously my main concern was to clean him up and comfort him after his short but intense ordeal. I did think it worth taking the second to quickly capture the moment though!

His disgruntled little brown face was soon clean and smiling again after an emergency bath and the felt tip pens are no longer as easily accessible for the three year old.