Woohoo Extra Day Of Painting

Today we got in an extra day of painting class. Even though my mom was not here to teach it, she will be here Wednesday, I spoke to her over the weekend. We discussed a few things, and she thought if the kids could practice more than every other week, it might go better. Since DJ has blending down pretty good, he needed to start working on very specific strokes. Since the only two I am comfortable with are the scrunchy, and one leaf design we decided to concentrate on those. My mom also suggested all three of us draw out what we wanted to draw first, so we had a visual of what we wanted it to look like. So, I found a cute snowman in one of my counted cross stitch books and each of us drew two snowmen, trying to make them exact. They weren't exact LOL. Since I can not draw I was very disappointed, but after I painted him he looked much better. So we drew, then we practiced the strokes on dry paper with just the brush. Then, I made them choose the color blends they wanted to use first, and we all used the same. Only one color blend at a time, then wash and dry brush, and move to the next. This worked very well for all of us. DJ swears he does not have the hand dexterity to follow the strokes, but he improves every time. Caitlin is still having an issue following specific directions, but she is only 7 after all. DJ's snowman looks like it is blowing in the wind. He decided to pose with all three paintings below. Caitlin said no, she wanted to play outside. Can't blame her there, it was gorgeous today. We will save the other drawing for Wed when my mom is here, to paint the snowmen onto bottles.

DJ did a blog post book report on A Christmas Carol. Any of you who have reluctant writers, or do not like book reports, blogging forces them to do a better job as others could read it. It has been so much help for DJ. He also read one chapter in Darien's Rise, house chores, and of course Art and painting class. Tomorrow we are squeezing in a playdate at the park, before the holiday, and bookwork in the morning before we go.

Painting Class #3: Turkeys

OK, first off let me explain what you are looking at. I thought we were painting turkeys on glass bottles today. I got my cable communications mixed up with my mom, the teacher, and we were going to draw and then pain the turkeys on paper so we got an idea of how it would look and if it is what we wanted. So that is what we did. Since we are concentrating on learning to blend in one stroke, I saved one of the blending plates to share. I would have taken pictures of them all, but the kids already threw them away. The yellow and purple feathered turkey is mine. I figured since this was a sort of experiment kind of turkey that I would practice strokes taught on the video. It was going great until I got to the face where I practice her fancy leaves and his face looks like a giant pansy, LOL! He also has eyebrows and a vine type mouth. Oh well at least I got the strokes better. DJ is doing well, and I am going to have him start practicing the strokes with a dry brush in the instruction book. That way he can follow the strokes without making a mess, and get a feel for how the stroke should go. That has helped me a lot too. Caitlin is still working on blending and has not moved to strokes yet. But she is having a ball painting and I don't think she much cares about the rules of it all. If you are not familiar with the Donna Dewberry method, you are supposed to be able to load a paintbrush and blend your colors all in one stroke of the brush. If you look at the turkey feathers that are yellow and purple, each feather is one stroke of the paint brush, so you can visualize what I mean.

I Want To Learn To Paint

I want to learn to paint. This is a new thing for me, and I am unsure why the idea has come to me. But, I have this urge to paint. DJ has taken some lovely pictures and I would love to reinvent them in painted scenes. Pictures like this one he took just yesterday. These are the beautiful Wisteria, growing into our back yard, and neighbors yard. I think after I am certain that I have purchased all the supplies for next school year, I will attempt to learn to paint.