Teach Art to Your Children v 2.5

Continuing on with my weekly series on projects that you can teach to you children. We worked with acrylic paint and a sewing machine this week to make a cute Valentine's kite/garland:

This week with the girls, I was planning to teach them how to make quilled Valentine's. The 6 year olds could not grasp the quilling tool so I had to think up another project on the fly. Enter the "heart kite". We cut out 5 pairs of matching hearts and one large heart out of 300lb watercolor paper. The girls quickly got busy using the acrylic paint as watercolor, swirling it around on all the white hearts.

To complicate the hearts, once they were dry I taught the girls how to stencil on some interference paint. They loved how the special effect paint shimmered! A cosmetic wedge acts as a perfect stenciling tool, easy for children and adults alike.

Dry hearts then entered the sewing machine to make the kite. Pair the hearts with the good sides facing outward. (Once they are sewn together, we bent the edges out slightly to create a 3D effect.) The children guided each through the machine as we discussed the parts of the machine and how to make sure the hearts were spaced evenly. They left talking about bobbins, zig-zag and special effect paint.

Sensationalizing is boring.

It's a BOY!

There is a sego palm that grows right up against my bedroom window. Doves nest there every year. Kate and I open the window every morning and have a front row seat to what's happening in the nest... this morning, the babies left the nest. I can only see one of them right now, the backyard is off limits until they can fly.

Here we are, hanging out on the patio. I shot these from my living room with a long lens. This baby is just like a human.. he walks a bit, takes a nap, looks for his parents..tries to get back under his parents, eats..then takes a nap. They are very exciting to watch. I am a proud parent.

Not so exciting to watch.....

L.O.V.E.

In the mood for frilly things and small foil-wrapped chocolates....

Another week. More wrestling.

Some recent instagram fun... A) some vintage letters written in Italian; b) an abandoned shoe shine station; c) the sky as our weather changed earlier in the week; d) yours truly in a Halloween costume my mom made me, circa 1976.

So the last couple of weeks I have been busy with some creative things, but not doing much in the way of my creative business. I am looking for change. I'm "nesting" creative ideas and energy and I am feeling good. But I am faced with wondering how much longer this "nesting" phase can go on?

You know the phase.. I'm cleaning my workspace. I'm buying a little of this, pinning a little of that and doing a lot of reading and searching for inspiration...and I am asking myself a ton of questions internally...they're about to go external. Want to think with me?

I read somewhere that using pinterest and blogging your ideas can be detrimental to your creative process. When is too much inspiration a bad thing? Do the ideas get cluttered? Do they lose your "fingerprint" because they start to look like someone else's idea? How about this one:

Sit on it. Do you sit on your big ideas or shout them from the rooftops right away? I'm sitting. Trouble is that I don't know what I am sitting on yet..I almost do..but it's (the idea) is not ready yet.. the bottom line is that I'm making art and taking pictures to make money. It's my job..my only job...so it's important to me that the ideas stay with me until I can execute..I don't want to risk sharing the ideas at the moment so that someone else nurtures the idea and boom...now there goes the idea. It's the not so much fun portion of the creative process... it is what it is.

So what do you think? How much inspiration can one person take...and are you a sitter?

Have a great weekend..it's Super Bowl weekend here in the US...I can't wait to see halftime!