New Supplies!

 

Our kids always crave the newest,best art supplies; who wouldn’t? When we brought my favorite watercolor crayons outside, I held my breath. Would they treat them with the proper reverence and respect?

Mostly yes. Isabel spent an hour carefully sketching lines of color, then blending them with water.

The only run in we had was when the purple crayon broke in half. I said it was no big deal, because it’s great to have two purple crayons. She disagreed, and repeatedly threw the broken outcasts under the picnic table, because they didn’t fit her sense of order. 

It can’t be a coincidence that three friends recently sent me the link to the most beautiful blog post ever, by Mica Angela Hendricks. I’m inspired and in love with the collaborative work that Mica creates with her four-year-old daughter. They have prints and t-shirts and all kinds of good stuff for sale at Society6. I’m leaning toward buying Outer Face. 

 

Jump In!

 

 

New Eyes

 

We don’t need to get in to quotes from Proust, but I do love the idea of looking at the same old stuff, from a fresh perspective. Hanging out with a three-year-old might be the best way to help yourself transform the mundane to the amazing. Current not-to-be-missed favorite sightings include bunny slippers, a deconstructed baseball, and padlocks.

 

 

 

What’s caught your eye this week?

 

New Cities

 

“Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.”
― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

A weekend trip to Ikea led to many cardboard boxes in our backyard. The boxes were the key to drawing Sam away from his two current obsessions, Survivalcraft and Minecraft. At first he didn’t even feel like going outside, but there was a very tall skinny box that became a transporter, and he was hooked. Building Minecraft cities from the boxes was his idea. He began with confidence, sure that he and I could make buildings that looked exactly like his on-line Minecraft constructions.

Sam realized pretty quickly that we couldn’t create an exact match with our materials. He railed about that for a while, and then shifted gears, to create something new. The process took a lot of negotiation, patience, and packing tape. He was proud of his city buildings, even though they look nothing like Minecraft block buildings. It was bedtime, and he bargained to stay outside just a little longer, to put on the finishing touch – a “balancing side patio” for Isabel’s dolls.

I hope the city will last a few days, before the real patio is reclaimed. I love observing the process, and the interplay between the low tech cardboard and his virtual world on the iPad. For more cardboard box inspiration, check out Caine’s Arcade and Caine’s Arcade 2. We’re thinking about hosting a Cardboard Challenge on October 5. Who wants to join us? 

New & Improved

 

Have you tried anything new lately? Like climbing a sculpture, without your shoes?

I haven’t, but September seems like a good month to change that. And it seems like a good month to get back to photography and writing, as our schedules get a little more predicable.

As you head back to school, work, or other adventures, what are you trying that’s new to you?