Art Lessons

Naturally my granddaughters are the very best, brightest and most talented kids! That being said, we can all use some further instructions in life. That's when my role as grandmother/art teacher began.

DOING stuff has always been interesting for me. Having two eager girls to join my adventures has been gratifying. Not being trained as a teacher, I looked for some guidance. Kumon Workbooks, which are available from the bookstore, offered brightly colored pictures to cut, paste and mazes to follow. The material was a great beginning.

It's been fun to see their personalities come out in their work. My six year old spends a great deal of time developing her work. She will also move further into the assignment and initiate experimentation. My four year old is very passionate. One sticker is never enough, rather she favors a pile format, one on top of another. Her color choice is very dramatic - black is her latest favorite.

Of course we are also creating gifts for the family. Their gifts for Dad were paperweights. I shrunk some of the girls' photos down to stamp size and they used mod podge to glue them on to the rocks. The only glitch was that the rocks were quite large. Oh well, it meant more pictures. And, should a hurricane hit their Dad's office, he is well prepared.

They have taught me much in this process as well. Once I was taking my four year old through the steps of creating a sea monster. Each one of the coils rose above the surface of the water giving the impression of a mighty beast. When the last coil was ready to put into place, she calmly informed me that she would rather put it on her balloon and did so. It has been a challenge for me to "not help". Even though I wanted the results to be wonderful, I've learned that is not the point.

Persistence

One of my objectives in doing this blog is to remain true to my "Mission Statement". No wandering off course. Recently I posted "What's with all the cars and trucks?" It took me four tries until it posted. Sooooooo don't give up out there. Although

the layout is nothing to write home about - each successive try looked better.

Persistence will, eventually, get the job done. Case in point: the mural at our local Inn. As a kid I painted five foot daisies on the hall wall - no pressure there! The six inch grass was also a piece of cake. Another time I polka dotted my girl's bedroom walls with round red circles of contact paper. So I have a history of adventuresome decorating. The Inn is a totally different situation. The subject has to be recognizable - additionally it has to be a credit to a beautiful old building being gracefully restored.

The reference material came from our town history book. Years ago Labor Day was celebrated with parades and a band concert. As a former "summer person" turned "year rounder" I wonder if all the excitement was due to the annual departure of the summer residents!

The space is about eight feet wide covering two adjacent walls. It's bordered by a chair rail and well lit. Initially the corner of the composition was the most problematic. Once that was resolved the composition fell into place. Sure there are a few cases of "artistic license" but I'm not recreating the photograph.

The first day of work was very intimidating. I wanted to get something recognizable on the wall immediately. I traced over the design I had done at home with transfer paper. Ooooops, I forgot to gesso the wall first. Losing all that work was unacceptable. So I blocked in each area with tinted gesso. It looked like I knew what I was doing!

I photograph the results after each work session so I have something to study at home. So far the results are encouraging. It appears that, once again, persistence is working.