Happenings: Sculptures by my Son

In case you were wondering, May is still hard, except now it starts in April.

I will post the May cakes after my son's birthday. He turns 21 this year. I haven't figured out what his cake will be yet. He just finished his spring semester at the community college. I think he has a bit of me in him. He always thinks he's doing worse in some classes than he actually is.

He also tends to surprise me with a conversations like this:

Him: So the student show opening is 11:00 to 1:00 tomorrow.
Me: And you're telling me now? (The time is 8PM)
Him: I told you I had a piece in the student show.
Me: But you didn't say when it would be.
Him: I just did.

OK.

So we went to the student show, and luckily it wasn't at the same time that I work. It's nice to see his work recognized when I had to "nudge" him a bit to take the sculpting class. I've watched him create sculptures from the time he was two or three. Here he is with his sculpture, made out of 100 plastic forks.

He also worked hard on this arm for a performance art piece for the same class. The fingers on the hand and the arm are rigged so he can move them with his hand and arm. I asked how he learned to do that. He recalled seeing it done on a short-lived reality series where contestants vied for a position at Jim Henson's Creature Shop. You never know where you are going to pick up a new skill.

A Few Halloween Pumpkin Pictures

It was quite a week. I'm still recovering from being crazy busy between work and volunteering and life in general. I did make a point of making time for carving pumpkins. It's one of the few things I enjoy about Halloween, we get to be creative and we get roasted pumpkin seeds to snack on. Since my daughters decided to share a pumpkin this year, it meant I had my own to play with.

My son decided for a tentacle creature.

My daughter created the character of Koro-Sensei, from Assassination Classroom (I didn't get a shot of him after they gave him a mortarboard to wear. It did complete the look.

My idea for this year was a phoenix. It was rather wide, so I took shots from two angles.

When things get crazy, it's nice to take moments to get messy, be creative and have fun.

A Gift for my Mother

For Mother's Day, I made this pendant for my mother:

I really tried to make it meaningful. The top bead represents my mom. It isn't a perfect bead because my own experience as a mother is that you never really feel like you are perfect, you just try to do the best you can, but the bead is still beautiful. The three round beads represent her three children.  Under them are six more smaller glass beads, representing all of her grandchildren. I added the flower charm at the bottom to balance the piece. Not everything is a symbol.

I'm glad I had the time to be with my mom on Mother's Day. I hope she feels appreciated, because I do appreciate her and I know I don't always show it as much as I should.

The Busy Time

I blinked and April was almost over.

This time of year always takes me by surprise. You would think I learned by now, but it still is the most busy time of the year. From now to the end of May it will be one thing after another. Happy things, but too much.

The busy started yesterday with a trip up to my daughter's university for the senior art exhibit. You know what's nice? Hearing other students tell you how wonderful your daughter is. It's not just my imagination. She is wonderful!

Here are some pictures of her and her work at the exhibit. Click on an image to make it bigger. Please excuse the glare of the lights on the glass.

Riddle: How many apples grow on a tree?

Riddle: What has a single eye but cannot see?

In front of her display. She had stickers to give away.

She helped to hang work and to set up the reception. I'm glad we got there early, since the reception was incredibly crowded, it would have been hard to appreciate all the wonderful work her class did. So many art students and such a wide variety of styles. This school was a good fit for her, it allows the students to really find their niche in the art world rather than fit into a school mold. Many students already have illustration jobs ahead of them. My daughter? I think she should own her own gallery. She showed us around and really enjoyed talking up the work of her peers.

We are almost there. In three weeks, she graduates. But not before two birthdays, a comic convention, Mother's Day, and a parks event that I promised to help at. Because, you know, what's one more activity when you're busy?

Let Your Child Surprise You

My youngest always manages to surprise me. Our crocuses came up early because of a warm March. She photographed them. I never know when she does these things. She is a very quiet and intense thirteen year old. Like her older sister, she is very critical of her talents, but she does indeed have a gift with the camera. Here is a sample of what I found on the camera when I cleared some of my photos from it:

All of these are untouched and not cropped, exactly as I pulled them off the camera. I'm equally amazed because I have a hard time getting a clear shot this close up with her camera (my own camera broke a couple of years ago and I borrow hers). She is an incredible photographer.

When we give them the freedom and allow them the opportunity to explore without interfering, our children can really surprise us with their skills. How has your child surprised you?

This Year's Christmas eCards

These are my ecard designs for 2015. I've been crazy busy around here and am still trying to catch up on everything. It probably won't happen this year, but I'm going to cut myself some slack for being a working homeschooling mom. I also turned in my quarterly report to the dept. of ed. this month because I was busy trying to save our parks curators' jobs from budget cuts last month. This whole year swept by quickly for me, without many breaks along the way. I keep in mind that ife is a journey, and at this time of year, I do my best to stop and remember how thankful I am for all the good things in my life. I hope everyone enjoys their holidays!

(click to enlarge)

 

What I'm Working On: Recycled Book Art

 I haven't decided whether I'm finished or not. I might cover over the eyes. I might paint it. Then again, I do prefer the rough look of it, much like the author's drawings. I might leave it alone and see how I feel about it next week. I just hope it's recognizable.

For me, art is more process than product. Figuring out how to do something and fiddling with it. I guess I look at many aspects of life that way.

The "I should really post some photos" Post

Mom wants pictures. She doesn't use Facebook. So here is a visual recap of some of our activities.

Chase made a costume to wear at the Renaissance Faire when he went with his friends. He pounded out the chestplate himself.

Before she went back to University, Marina and I set up a fall display at the library. She only had time to make three squirrels a bird and some books, so I put the rest together. I plan to add pumpkins soon to take it through Thanksgiving.

 

 We had many animal visitors to the yard this summer and early autumn. The toad above was under the hydrangea bush by the door.  Below, an oddly marked grackle came visiting a few times. I named it Spot.












After several blurs and missed opportunities, I got a photo of our backyard hummingbird. She hangs around the yard during the summer, and even buzzed my ear when I invaded her territory one morning to fill our small birdbath/fountain.

We finally had a Monarch butterfly in our yard. It's worrying how few butterflies and bees we've seen this year. Please, if you garden, try to avoid pesticides and herbicides. They are really hurting the beneficial insect population and their food plants.

 We visited an orchard recently, on our way to drop off supplies to Marina. She asked us to take some reference photos for her (It's an artist thing. We are always supplying her with reference photos), so Sierra brought her camera and while I picked out apples (no time to pick them ourselves), she snapped some photos of the orchard residents.

That's all for now. I have to say, I really miss my old camera. I can't take as good shots of insects and moons with my daughters' cameras. My supermoon photos were shiny blurs on black. I think Sierra misses the camera too. She could do a lot with it that her small camera can't.

Focus

My camera died last December. The last place I used it was the train show, and after that it stopped focusing. All I could see was a blur, and then nothing.

I try to use my daughter's camera every once in a while, but I'm impatient with it. It feels like I'm using someone else's glasses. I can't "see" anything the way I could with mine. It has no manual focus, and possibly no sport setting either. I used the sport setting on my camera to photograph bugs. Of course, I haven't seen a bug since winter set in, with our frigid temperatures, but I like to be prepared. It was also good for fast moving birds. I watch them, longing to capture their image.

To have a camera is to focus on one thing at a time. To see my subject as I might not if I look at the full scene. To see that one detail that makes me gasp when I open the photo files: the stretched wing of a bird, the delicate scales on our small lizards, the light and shadows playing across the cat's fur, the concentration in a child's face. To focus is to learn, to appreciate, to wonder, to love. My camera deepened my understanding of these things as much as sketching did.

I miss my camera. It served me well for (almost? over?) ten years and survived several drops from various heights over those years. It is likely it lived on borrowed time. My husband wants to replace it eventually, possibly with something "better," something different. I'm trying to come to terms with that. Anything different means relearning how to use a camera. I know I'm going to be unforgiving and compare it to my old one, but I will try to focus on the positive.

Shifting Identities

Coming to my blog makes me feel guilty lately. It's been so long since I posted a comic strip.

Life as a part-time unschooler has been wearing on me lately. I love my job and I love being mom to creative homeschooled kids, but at the same time I'm frustrated. My focus has shifted. I'm not the one home with my youngest and last homeschooler. I don't bring her to as many activities as I used to bring her siblings to. I can't even convince her to come to work with me regularly, which I considered an advantage of working in the library. I miss being around my kids.

At the library, I meet a lot of children and their parents, as well as children with babysitters. The majority are on the public school path. I don't see as many homeschoolers here. There simply isn't that large a population of homeschoolers in our area. To the patrons, I'm the library clerk (or librarian, as most don't know the difference). I feel a loss of identity here, or a second identity forming, as if I were a superhero or spy, living a double life. I can hear the intro...

Strange visitor from an alternative reality, she is Homeschooling Mom! Protector of learning, advocate for her kids, and who, disguised as Cristina, mild-mannered library clerk, fights for truth, knowledge, and a homeschooling lifestyle!

Except I don't talk about homeschooling much at work. Homeschooling isn't something we do, it's who we are. Instead, I compliment kids who borrow books my family loves. I recommend biographies by Mike Venezia to young readers because they were engaging to all of my children. I suggest graphic novels for reluctant readers (which some of their parents don't approve of--"You mean...comic books?"). I've reassured parents that it's OK to let their kids read books below their reading level if the children really love them. It's weird, I feel like I'm trying to homeschool the community.

Lately, my time has also been eaten up by my volunteer work at the library and the nature center. Each have big events coming up on the same weekend. These are also separate identities with their own sets of responsibilities. Superman had it easy. I'm stretched a bit thin.

To maintain my sanity, I try to do some creative things, even though I don't have the time or energy for comics. Here are my latest CD creations. I'm hoping to add more soon. Because I don't have enough to do!

Cat

Spirit of the Wind

Minotaur

Show and Tell

 

My son designed the costume above for a cosplay contest at the library. He is the League of Legends character, Karthus. He must have done a good job. The League of Legends players at the event knew who he was. It's unfortunate there was only a first and second prize, as he was in a close race with the girl who received second place. Ah well. There is always next year!

~~~~~~~~ ☼ ~~~~~~~~

I still volunteer at the library, even though I now work there part time. We got a donation of computer games recently. Many were too old to work in today's systems, so I took them home. I had an idea about turning them into art. The top dragon is my first piece. It was OK, but I saw flaws that needed correcting. The second came out much better. I'm planning to make more, possibly to sell. I want to try other creatures. Maybe I'll make a unicorn or pegasus next.

 

I need to take pictures of my daughters' creations. Hopefully this will be continued.....

A Little Snow Must Fall

I don't remember seeing this much snow since we moved to this area, the year of the thirteen snowstorms. This week has been particularly difficult, with two heavy snows dumped within days of each other. I struggle to be optimistic about it, but when you are already sore from digging out on Monday and find all your work gone when you look out the window on Wednesday, it can be disconcerting, to say the least.

Those are the teachable moments the natural world gives us. Since I am a lover of  impermanent art forms, I try to look at shoveling the walk the same way I might look at a sand castle being overcome by a wave. There is nothing personal about it, it just is. The snow falls, and the walk and driveway must be cleared. If nothing else, I'm getting an excellent workout moving that snow into ever increasing mounds.

And a mound of good packing snow can be as fascinating to me as a block of marble to a sculptor.

Let the Paint Drip

I really don't like painting. I know I'm good at it, I just don't like it. I never thought about why I feel that way until I read this article by Camp Creek Blog and one of the comments about it (you need to scroll all the way down to see the comment by Julie on November 8th). Reading about how art has been taught and evaluated the same as other subjects in school brought a vivid memory to the surface. This was something I hadn't thought about in years.

I think it had to be in first or second grade. I remember the teacher going through our paintings and commenting on them. I hadn't signed my painting (luckily) but I knew it when I saw it. I had so much trouble with it when I painted it. My brain tends to go faster than my hands. If I sketch, this isn't a problem, but painting requires extra steps. When I was little, I was impatient, so I didn't consider how much paint was on my brush. I just dipped the brush and painted. 

And the thick paint rolled down the easel. Then I tried to fix it, but that only made things worse. Paint was not fun. It didn't listen to me and stay where I put it. I set the painting out to dry and forgot about it.

At least, I forgot about it until my teacher held it up to ridicule. First she complained about the waste of supplies. She was annoyed that someone didn't listen about wiping the excess paint off the brush. I really couldn't remember her telling us that, but I lived in my head when I was a kid. I missed things. My imagination was my real world. It's where I would escape to when I was stuck in hospital rooms or sick at home with asthma. It was hard to turn it off in class.

The final straw for my teacher was that the artist didn't sign their name. "Whose is this?" she demanded. I said nothing. I wasn't stupid. Who would admit that such an awful painting was theirs? She threw it away.

Each of my children is artistically gifted, but all of them started with talent in one area of art. As they grew I let them be, I didn't push them to try media they weren't comfortable with, but I kept them well stocked with various craft and art supplies to inspire them. Chase spent more time creating with Duplo blocks than his sisters. He can make fantastic costumes and weapons out of cardboard, duct tape, and foam. It took him longer to gain confidence with two dimensional art, but that was OK. He had all the time he wanted to develop his skills.

I let them experiment. I let them ruin markers and break crayons. I let them dry out unfinished clay models. I let them use too much glue and spill paint and glitter. That's how they learn. Being an artist is messy business. My parents gave me a constant supply of paper, pens and pencils, etc. I did the same. Our kids are worth those "wasted" supplies in the pursuit of creativity.

Crafting Again

I don't know how much decorating we will do for Halloween, but at least we have two pumpkins. These are Sierra's latest projects...

The foam pumpkin was bought at Michaels. I thought it might be nice to have a pumpkin we could reuse each year. And bonus, no digging out pumpkin guts. Unfortunately, this wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. Our regular carving tools were not sharp enough for foam, so I resorted to helping Sierra cut out her design with an X-acto knife. I had to stop every few minutes because the smell of foam is so strong once you cut open these fake gourds. Pumpkin carving should not be a toxic experience.

The book pumpkin was a little easier. She was able to do most of the cutting herself. You can find instructions for it here. I helped round the spine and glue some pages so that the pages would disperse evenly. Other than that, she made it herself.

While she worked on that, I repurposed one of my favorite picture books, Miss Suzy. My copy had a frayed spine and some writing on the pages. I was lucky enough to find another copy while sorting through donations for our annual book sale. Still, I didn't have the heart to toss a beloved book, so I cut out pictures from it to create a decoupage wooden box using Mod Podge and then covering the box with varnish. I've never done this on a box before. In hindsight, I should have stained the box first, but I'm pretty happy with the results.

Virtual Sculpting

I know I've been a bit lax with my comics lately. The reason is simply that we have had a bit too much living going on lately for me to find the time to write about it! Spring is in the air, and that means I'm being drawn out of my hibernation and back into my garden and the parks. Sierra and I started going to park days again with other homeschoolers, and last week we had our first nature class of spring, where she got to dissect an owl pellet. (My family has been kidding me all week because I keep telling friends and family that we were going to do owl dissection. The word "pellet" kept slipping out of the description!)

I do have something to show you today. Chase took some screen shots of the work he's been doing. Click on the photo for a larger image.

► One of the first creatures he made was the Demented Monkey Thingamabobbin. Remember that these pictures only give one view of the character. In order to "sculpt" it, it has to be turned and viewed from each angle. That can be frustrating when you think you are doing well with one side and then turn it to find that another side is deformed and wonky.


 ◄ This is one of my favorites, a dinosaur cowboy he called Steve the Gunnasaurus.

 Kainda is a Yordle. It's a character he made up for the League of Legends universe. He spent a lot of time finding just the right name for the character. Kainda is an African name meaning hunter's daughter. He wrote an entire background for her that relates to the game. These two pictures show the character and then the skeleton he created for her.▼



The yellow darts in the second picture are inverse kinematics. They help the skeleton and the model recognize a solid surface and stop it from sinking into the ground.

Snow and Paper

 We had some of our best packing snow of the season on Friday, courtesy of Nor'easter Saturn. Sierra and I worked together to build this flying unicorn. (click on any image to enlarge it.)

While we played outside, Marina used an unexpected snow day to add more detail to a project she's been working on for her 3D Design class. The assignment was to build armor from recycled computer paper. The armor needed to cover 80% of her body. Luckily, she's thin and short. Some kids make paper chains. My kid makes paper chain mail. 

 

 Just to reiterate, this was made using only paper and glue. No staples, tape, not even string for the connections. This was her choice. She likes to challenge herself. She's been working on it for about four weeks. 

Of course, she had to work under a handicap. Rosie likes to put herself into whatever Marina works on.