arty pants

 

This is just a  fraction of the art produced by Brendan in the last 6 weeks or so. 

If you take a walk around our house you'll see a few more piles here and there and bits of paper stuck to walls and doors and fridges. We're running out of wall space :) 

Some highlights and favourite subjects have included...

• his "play" of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang which consists of about 8 "scenes" elaborately drawn by him with words dictated to mummy. The whole process took a couple of days and hours of movie watching!
• a shield made completely alone with cardboard, a drinking straw and copious amounts of cellotape.
• Stories in his story book, with pictures and usually involving a rescue of some sort.
• the sketch drawn "in the field" of the vehicles working on our road.
• pirate island maps, each one becoming more detailed
• ocean and the octonauts, diggers and aircraft, rainbows and butterflies, people with fingers and toes

 

writing whenever the mood strikes

Making the most of an afternoon without Tadhg to get out all the paints.

cities and rescue centres created with lego

lego vehicles

drawing out and about

taking drawing stuff out with us

Imagination... climbing the giant's mountain.

There is so much more he manages to do that I haven't shown here. 

I do worry about not giving him enough time to just do this stuff, at his own pace and when he feels like it. It sometimes breaks my heart when I take him away from some project or other to go somewhere or do something. But when I see it all together like this I think it's ok to stop worrying. He's managing to fit all this creativity into his days and I think he's doing just fine. 

I've just registered him for his first organised activity. Next week is the Carnaval week off school and Brendan will be doing an art camp- 3 hours a day for 5 days. I'm not sure exactly what they will be doing (all the info was in french) but it said maximum 6 in the class and they have to bring painting clothes including old shoes that can get messy. Lots of big painting I think. 

Fingers crossed he likes it.

warming up and refueling

 

It has stayed below freezing pretty much all week, so when we come in from the cold it's often to the tune of "hot chocolate, hot chocolate!"

And below are a couple of pictures I took when we had one of our favourite dinners... an indoor picnic complete with crackers and cheese, our own chutney, pita bread, boiled eggs from our own hens, lots of fruit and avocado... yummy. And this particular one we had in front of an old James Bond film that was on the telly. The boys loved the long ski and car chases (and the fighting) but consequently Brendan then became James Bond for a couple of days which was a little difficult to deal with :) The skiing was cool though. Steve and I were getting excited about our upcoming ski trip to Norway!

Notice Brendan is working on something arty in both of these two pictures, as is often the case these days. 

New bedrooms

I started this when pregnant with Tadhg with the intention of giving it to him for his first sleeping space. It's now in Brendan's new room.

It is copied from a painting by Charlotte Lyons (? I think that's it). I saw it, or one like it, in a book on house interiors while browsing in Chapters. I googled when I got home and love her paintings. I'd like to do a lemur one for Caitlin too.

what makes a perfect winter's day?

Steve is doing fine in Texas. He called last night from the top of a hill they decided to hike up after work. Lucky him, I'm not jealous, really ;)Brendan and I collaborated on a painting yesterday and this is what we came up with. I painted the canvas green and then gave him a few squidges of paint and a brush. He did the rest except for me pointing out the blank bits "how about more here? and over here?... "
And below is the baobab I did too. I kind of copied the composition from a watercolour I had seen but I'm loving thick paint in bright colours at the moment so it is very different.
Today the weather is almost perfect. About zero degrees, bright blue sky, warm sun and there's a thickish layer of fluffy new snow covering everything. The wind could do with being a little calmer and there you go- a perfect winter's day. I just love the feeling as your spirits lift when you step outside on a day like today. It's really invigorating and you can't help but feel happy, even if your almost two year old has just flooded the bathroom! Hopefully it will just dry up like last time and won't cause any permanent damage.

So we made it to playgroup about an hour late but in time to play a while before treating ourselves and having lunch out. Steve and I have an ongoing problem relating to "crepe confusion" where I just can't get my head around having a pancake as part of a savoury meal. Pumpkin pie causes the same sort of confusion. Anyway, today just confirmed my suspicions that trying this is just plain wrong- I tried a 'ham, brie and apple panini crepe'- all I can say is eucchhh. I ate it all though so it can't have been that bad.

An artist?

Just a quick one to share this. I love watching Brendan experiment with drawing things. The photo above shows his current habit of using the colours one at a time and placing each one that he has used over to his left before putting a lot of thought into choosing another one. He draws a couple of times everyday, usually while waiting for a meal, and today's "new thing" is drawing circles (of sorts).