Stockmar Paint Review

     Recently we completely ran out of water color paint, so I decided to splurge a little and get some Stockmar liquid water colors, that are designed for wet-on-wet paintings. 
     Since these paints have so much hype around them, and they are the paints used by most Waldorf school,  I guess I expected them to be really fabulous.  They're nice, but not fabulous.  In quality they really don't seem any different than Windsor & Newton or other similar water color brands.  Tube water colors are cheaper than liquid, but Stockmar paints really aren't liquid.  They're a little more runny than tube paints, but not enough to easily get out of the jar.  When you have three little ones eagerly waiting on you to get them set up to paint, this can be annoying. 
      There are some things I really like about them.  They retain their color well when dry, and the dried painting has a slight sheen to it.  They are very good for wet-on-wet.  The colors run together so well and it keeps wet longer than other paints; so much so, that I think they might have a drying retardant in it. 

      I played around with them some after the kids were finished painting.  I had fun, but boy!  It's hard to paint anything other than blobby shapes, the way the paints want to run together.  However, I think that if I had used paint that hadn't already been diluted by the twins over zealous water usage, it might have been a little easier. 

     All in all, Stockmar paints are fun and pretty, but really not worth the price.  I think transparent tube water colors are a better value.  A cheap and fun liquid water color substitute is food coloring.  Being a dye, the painting will fade over time, but for kids art they're great.

My Etsy Shop

    After much planning and procrastinating, I have finally (Drum roll please...) opened my own Etsy shop!  There isn't a lot in it as of now, but I am steadily working away on new projects. 
     The above banner was a collaboration between Abriel and I.  The background was part of one of her wet on wet water colors. The kids turn out reams of these, and so I've started thinking of other ways to use them, so when I was in need of a banner, it hit me that one of their painting would be perfect.  I painted the stones and the dragonfly, and after Abriel got over her initial horror of seeing me paint on her picture, she is now thrilled that her picture is on the computer.   Abriel and Samuel have also been very understanding about seeing me make toys that are not for them.  The concept of me making something for a person whom I don't know, is beyond their comprehension, so I have had to make up stories about the boys and girls who will get to have Mommy's toys. 
     So, if you would like to see what I have so far, here it is! Stepping Stone Toys  Comment, and tell me what you think.  I would love any feed back.

What I've been working on

   I thought I'd share some things I've been working on recently.   I have a big list of things I want to make the kids for Christmas, that I really should be working on, but I find myself getting side tracked a lot.
      This is a crayon roll I made for Anna.  Not exactly an essential item, but I wanted to make one. 

I made the pockets for the block crayons a little too shallow, so that's kind of irritating, but other than that, it turned out pretty good.  Anna picked out the fabric with her favorite colors in it. 

These are the beginning of what will be a whole set of alphabet cards.  I had been admiring this beautiful set of German alphabet card, but being in German, I didn't see the need in getting them.  Then, The Wooden Wagon started carrying similar ones in English.  I was so excited... until I saw the price!  $13.00 for a little pack of cards is just ridiculous.  They were also a lot smaller than I had envisioned.  Sooo... I have started painting my own.  Yes, I am stealing their designs, but oh well.  I might change a few of the animals, such as, I would really like the A to be an alligator instead of an antelope.  I painted these during the kids art time today, and will probably take advantage of this time to paint all of them.  I haven't painted with water colors in awhile, so it was fun getting back in the groove.

     I am making slow but steady progress on the farm play mat.  The end is in sight at least.

I love the way the different colors and textures combine.  Although time consuming, this has been an enjoyable project to work on.  It is so mindless that I can watch a movie while working on it, or just zone out with it.  It's rather therapeutic.

Personality and Artistic Differences

     An unexpected thunderstorm today made me think it was a good time for a little inside creativity, and to let the kids try out their new painting boards. 

     The boards are so smooth and pretty, it made painting time more special.  I made them from 1/4 inch plywood that was really smooth, but one side had green printing all over it, that could not be sanded out.  So I decided to stain them green using my homemade colored stain.  I just mix artist oil paint with butcher block oil, and I can get a rub on stain any color I want.

     I loved watching the twins paint today.  It really showed their personality differences.  Abriel very carefully painted in the blue, and then without mixing at all, she carefully added the red.  You can see her tongue stuck out in concentration.  She didn't talk at all while she was painting, but when she had filled in the last little bit of paper, she said, "I'm all done. It's very lovely." 

     Samuel's painting method is very different.  He slaps it all on, and the more mixing the better.  He also loves to chat while painting.  He said he was painting "A big, giant thunder rain cloud. " and it was "really loud!" While Abriel was carefully dabbing on her paint, he was painting, "as fast as a tornado!" with paint flying everywhere.  The paint must have been an inch thick by the time he was finished. 

     Anna painted her usual theme.  I really need to get her some watercolor paper, since painting on card stock just isn't the same.  When I made the painting boards, I also made Anna a paint pot holder.  I stained it turquoise- her favorite color.  I am going to make some for the twins as well, but I'm  out of scrap wood just now.

Pagoo

     This has to be my favorite Holling C. Holling book.  I love the lively way it's written, and the pictures are simply beautiful.
     Of course with a book this engaging, figuring out activities to go along with it is easy.  Anna has started illustrating the animals it talks about in the book.  I just bought some beeswax crayons, and so she's been using those.  Block crayons seem to be made for drawing underwater scenes, and I can see her spark and enthusiasm for drawing coming back.  Here are the ones she has done thus far.

This is Pagoo as he first appears in the book.

Here are some of the little creatures he shares the waters with.

A mussel bed.



      She's starting to find her footing in learning to use the block crayons.  They layer so well, that it makes it easy to create a beautiful glowing picture.  After we finish the book, I am going to put all her pictures in a binder, so that she can have her own illustrated book. 

      I admit I was hesitant about buying such expensive crayons, but I am glad I did.  They really are a pleasure to use; I am having a lot of fun with them myself!  The twins desperately want to use them, but I haven't let them, which makes me seem kind of mean, but it wont be long until they are in school, and I want to keep some things special and new for them then.   



 

Abriel the Artist

Abriel has really gotten into drawing faces.  They are so funny and expressive, that I just had to share.  Of course, I know I might be a bit biased. ;) I found these on the marker board today.

This one looks rather angry, or maybe just determined.

This one has something on his mind that he's not going to share yet.

And this one is worried.

     I'm having trouble accepting the fact that my babies are going to be three in just a few days.  Already they are talking so much, and are getting bigger in so many ways.  Good bye babyhood.



Art Time

      Tuesday is art day here; or at least it's suppose to be.  Sometimes it ends up being just one thing too much, but I give a good effort.  It is also something that all the kids do together.  Yes, it would be so much easier to have Anna paint a picture while the twins nap, but they really love art time.  I am seeing some return on the fact that they have been working with messy art materials since they were able hold a crayon, as they aren't too terribly messy.

     If they do get their hand in it, they can at least clean themselves off now.  I have also learned that washable tempera is the best paint for toddlers.  Finger paints only frustrate if the child is really interested in painting a picture.  I also give them a limited pallet. Usually only two or three colors.

     Anna uses opaque water colors, but I think the next time I buy her paint I will get transparent, since I think she is ready for them.  She likes it if I give her a specific thing to paint when we are doing art.  This time it was a tree in fall foliage.

An Easy Art Project

     We do art every Monday, and this includes learning about our Artist for the semester, picture study, and also working on our own creative projects.  For this Monday's art project I got the idea to do oil pastel and water color pictures from this Monet inspired project at Art Projects for Kids.
    I chose to do trees instead of lilies, and sent the kids outside while I got everything set up. I drew a tree out-line with a sharpie pen on all three of their sheets, although obviously the twins could care less.

     Anna worked on a sheet of watercolor paper, and the twins had thick drawing paper.  I had blue acrylic paint in a jar, watered down to resemble watercolor, and a selection of green, brown, orange, and red oil pastels in the middle of the table.  Samuel didn't lose any time in getting a big handful of colors to start with.

     Both Abriel and Samuel worked industriously, and only occasionally tried to eat the pastels and grab the jar of paint.

     After Anna was finished with her tree, I gave her a big wash brush, and told her to paint all over her picture.  She looked a little dubious until I explained that the oil pastels repel water, and so the paint would not stick to her drawing.  She liked the cloudy effect it gave her sky.

Then I temporally lost my sanity, and allowed Samuel and Abriel to put a wash on theirs.  (With my help)  Samuel did pretty good...

 Abriel on the other hand did not.  She refused to let me help her, and seemed very into dumping the whole jar of paint on her picture.  It ended in her screaming as I wrestled the paint brush out of her death grip; so I learned my lesson about that. 
    I hung the finished pictures on the wall, where they look very pretty.

What to do with an old box.

    A few years ago I made a little box to put Anna's blocks in.  I just used some scrap material we had on hand, and screwed it together.  Since then, the box has been abundantly scribbled on, had old pealing stickers stuck on it, and etc.  It was looking pretty bad, but I didn't really care since it's just a box to hold blocks in.  But last Christmas my Father made Samuel a beautiful set of blocks, and my Mother made a big bag to hold all of them, so I put all of the blocks in the much more attractive bag.  But what to do with the box?  I decided it was the right shape to hold our kids movies in, to help keep them accessible but organized.  So this scrappy little box has been sitting on my TV cabinet since.  When you're used to looking at something, it's easy to not see it's faults, but the other day I looked up there and thought, you know, I bet I could sand those scribbles off and make it look a lot better. So I did, and then I thought I'd paint something on it, and so I did.  The result is this.

     If you're thinking that the painting looks familiar, that's because I copied Gyo Fujikawa's illustration from A Child's Book Of Poems.  There is something about that crocodile that appeals to me.  I think a lot of it is the colors.  I had to alter the picture a little to make it fit on the box, but I like the end result.  It was fun just copying someone else's art; I haven't done that in years.  I used watered down acrylic paint to try to copy the pastel look of the original.  Considering I was working with completely different materials, I think I copied it pretty closely.  What do you think?  This was my Homeschool Holiday project.



Nature Study with a Bit of Science

      This is a little bit of art and science mixed in with nature study, but I thought it would be a fun way of demonstrating what is (or was) going on with the trees right now.  I got the idea from a book I have called Why Do Leaves Change Color? In the book a squirrel talks about how in the spring when a tree gets it's leaves it starts making it's own food, called chlorophyll.  Chlorophyll is what gives leaves their green color.  In the fall, when the days start getting shorter, the trees don't have enough sunlight to to generate enough energy to continue to make chlorophyll, and the leaves begin to die.  The green chlorophyll breaks up and disappears, and what is left are the colors that were there all along, but were covered up by the green. 
     To demonstrate this, I drew out leaf outlines and then had Anna paint them red, orange, and yellow.  When that dried, she painted green on the upper half.  All three leaves have the same shade of green painted on them, but the different colors underneath make the green appear to be different shades.  So, in the summer when you see a tree with light green leaves (like a tulip tree) you can know that in the fall that tree will turn yellow.  Our black oak has very dark green leaves, and in the fall it turns burgundy.  (The leaf out lines were traced from a black oak leaf.) 
     The reason for the poorly executed cursive is that I have been trying to write out things for Anna in cursive more often, so that she will get used to reading it, and in doing so I have realized that my cursive needs some serious help.  Not exactly like our Zaner-Bloser example page.  It's not even strait.

Notebooking

     I recently decided to incorporate notebooking into our schooling.  Anna is very into anything crafty, so this seemed like a good fit for her.  When I first suggested it to her she seemed uninterested in the idea, but I started going through ideas about what she could do with it, and the next thing I know she is asking if she can start on 

one right away!  She wanted to make her own "book" so we chose to use a paper binder, instead of a three ring one.  I thought it would be fun to do a notebook on The Adventures of Peter Cottontail as this is the book she is reading to get her "Book It" pizza this month.  Making the notebook helped perk up her interest in reading the book, and become more attached to the book it's self.  It has also been a great way for her to practice her growing cursive skills.  I think the next book I would like for her to do a notebook on is Our Island Story.  She has been having a hard time getting into it, and a note book might help it come to life.
     Here's a look at some of her pages.

Reddy Fox is laying in wait for Peter in a hollow log.  You have to lift the flap to see him.

Here's another lift the flap page. Reddy Fox is taking a stroll with Sammy Jay...

...and when you lift the flap you see Blacky Crow.

I suggested to Anna that she write an excerpt from the book, but she didn't like that idea and so she wrote this. For Anna, originality is very important.
     The next one is a collage, depicting Peter talking to Grandfather Frog.
     Notebooking has turned out to be more educational than I first thought that it would be, and Anna really seems to enjoy it.  I would love to see other peoples finished notebooks for more ideas on how to put it together.



Exploring Mediums in Art

    Along with doing picture study for art, I have also been giving Anna a chance to explore different art mediums.  Anna loves to paint, but many time the mess factor makes me reluctant to let her use paint when crayons and colored pencils are so much tidier.  However, since art is now part of her school work, I've decided that the mess is worth putting up with, and it really has been enjoyable for me.  Of course Anna loves it, and has made less mess than I origanally anticipated.   

Oil pastels, being so similar to crayons, were naturally first. The new painting technique I emphasized was was blending colors by layering.

Next was water colors.  I taught her how to do a wash for big areas like the sky.  Her painting is very high key, almost ethereal.  I particularly like the shadows; maybe one day we will do a lesson on how light creates the direction of shadows, but maybe this is a gentle, multi sunned planet.

Now it's time for the really messy stuff; acrylic paint. Not quite as bad as oils, but getting there.  For this one I had her pick a painting by Mary Cassatt (Our artist this semester) to copy.  She chose "Pattycake" which I thought was an ambitious choice.  Acrylics are very different than anything else she had used before, and they took some time getting familiar with the feel of them.  It took three weeks to finish, which also taught some patients.

 

Here is her painting finally all finished, side by side with the original.  She wont be forging paintings any time soon, but not bad for a first time with a difficult medium.  Now, do I dare oils?  

Artist Appreciation/ Picture Study

Mary Cassatt is the artist we are studying for this semester. I got these fun "Art Activity Packs" from Dover Publications, that have stickers, coloring book, and temporary tattoos!  I thought it would make studying art extra fun.  We do an art lesson once a week, and every one gets into it.  The babies were fascinated by the Mary Cassatt prints, and Abriel especially loved the picture of the mother washing her child's feet. She is very into belly buttons.  Samuel's favorite was of a woman sitting on a balcony with a little terrier on her lap.  He loves dogs. 
     I let Anna chose what picture she would like to do her picture study on, and she chose the young woman sewing in the garden.

I was delighted with her observations, since she didn't just describe the facts, (red flowers, white dress, etc.) but described what she thought the woman was feeling.  Anna said she "looked stern, like she was trying to concentrate, but there were children in the garden distracting her."  I loved it!
     I then had Anna draw a picture in the impressionistic style using oil pastels.  The twins drew a picture as well, and we all had a lot of fun.

Here is Anna working industriously.

Samuel was very excited to start drawing!