From the category archives:

art

Giraffe and a half

by mayberry on June 15, 2009

img_1489

My favorite piece of kid art to date: A giraffe named “Ewok” (see collar) with a tiny girl riding on its neck.

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Clearly the child should have her own blog

by mayberry on April 22, 2009


When I went on a trip to Urbana illanou. My uncal said my hol famliy cood see a huge mashing called Shop Bot work.
In orter to make it work my ant Amy, hoo is an artist, and I had to cerate a dasine. We drew a bunny for a dasine on her conprter. My ant Amy sent the dasine on her conprter to my uncal. My uncal uploaded the bunny dasine into the Shop Bot. The Shop Bot cut the bunny shap out of a picee of wood.

Then we took it back to my ant and uncal’s house. To pant it with my ant. We panted it wite and this weekend we will pant it with pingk spots.

I named it Stefeany.
The end.

By Jo and My Dad

(Editor’s note: Opie got a plane, natch.)

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Blind item

by mayberry on August 19, 2008

Okay, Day 2 of Photo Week and I am totally cheating by 1) using an image that isn’t really a photo and 2) using kid art that isn’t even MY OWN KID’S. Jo received this from a classmate and it is too fabulous to keep to myself (it is also one in a series of five).

See if you can guess what superfamous performers are depicted here and what’s happening in this scene. If you get it right I will send you a sticker from the dentist’s office and some valuable cents-off coupons that my husband brought home from work.

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My kids’ art: Let me show you it

by mayberry on April 11, 2008


Love your mother
Originally uploaded by mayberrymom

I love kids’ art — I’ve found ways to post several pieces here already. But it’s not just my own children’s stuff I love. Lo these many years ago when Jeff and I first started dating, we went to a bar in the West Village one Halloween. They were having an auction of kids’ paintings to benefit some cause. We were crushed when the bidding got too rich and we had to leave some our favorite pictures behind.

Now the tables have turned and I’m offering some of my children’s prizewinning works for a good cause: the Kid Art Auction for Earth Day 2008.

Clickety the button to find out how it works.

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To infinity…

by mayberry on April 2, 2008

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Snowman lineup

by mayberry on February 20, 2008

(Hers, his, hers)
Life imitates art. Or maybe it’s the other way around.

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Did I mention he loves show tunes?

by mayberry on February 6, 2008

The Circle of Life
by Opie

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Cheerer-upper art

by mayberry on October 21, 2007

For the Baddest Mother of them all:

mermaids

Mermaids cavorting beneath magic flying cat. Jo, 2007.
Collection the artist’s mother.

If this is what I can do to ease the suffering of my morning-sick sisters, I am so there. Someday soon (very very soon) may your stomachs settle and your appetites return.

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Orange

by mayberry on October 1, 2007

I remember last year about this time when Fa discovered her favorite color.

She was in her first week of “Mommy & Me”. She was painfully shy and she found some comfort in her spot behind the easel. (She is still very comfortable there, but for different reasons and she creates some gorgeous artwork.)

Armed and double fisted with paint brushes, two yogurt cups placed in front of her filled with red and yellow paint, she began her exploration.

Broad strokes of cherry red paint covered the butcher paper. She used thick layers of red on top of red. Satisfied with her work, she placed the red brush in the red yogurt cup.

Seemingly complete, she pondered her work. You could see the thought bubble rising from her head…”Something’s missing, I’m not done yet.”

Gently, she raised her second brush loaded with yellow paint and slid it across the red background. The colors magically changing right in front of her eyes. Woah!

“Look at what you discovered!”, sang her teacher with glee…
“I don’t see that color in your paint cups. I only see yellow and red. What happened?”

And it has been her favorite color ever since.


Fa is an almost four year old who lives with her Bloggin’ Mamma ~JJ! in a suburb outside of NYC. She loves to paint and draw pictures all day long and go to art museums. She just started preschool and her mom is having major separation anxiety. You can read all about her and their separation woes over at ~JJ!’s Blog Gaining Balance.

Thank you from the bottom of our paint cups to Mayberry Mom for sharing her creative space with us for this month’s Blog Exchange. The Blog Exchange is a monthly blog share that allows all participants to share their creativity on a new and different canvas. Come, be creative with us. And go read Mayberry Mom’s artwork over at Gaining Balance today.

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Injecting a little dose of cul-chah

by mayberry on March 5, 2007

I’m noticing a theme here. It’s a little like freshman year in college. Aside from their nonstop eating and their habit of strewing their belongings far and wide and deep, my children are studying the following subjects:

1. Music of the 20th Century
Both love listening to and playing music. So I thought it would be fun to take them to a free concert at our library a few Sundays ago.

(I’ll pause now for you to laugh at my idealism.)

Yes, I thought that I could scoop up my almost 2-year-old son literally seconds after his nap ended, toss him in the car with his almost 5-year-old sister who only thinks she doesn’t need a nap, and hustle them into a large room crowded with strangers where they would be expected to sit quietly and listen to more than an hour’s worth of jazz.

The band was billed as a “gypsy swing” ensemble so I guess I was picturing singing, dancing, trumpets, saxophones — all kinds of both ear and eye candy (they LOVE this boogie-woogie dance video). In reality, it was two guitars and an upright bass. And the musicians were excellent. It’s just that for two preschoolers, the excitement of watching and listening to them faded after about 10 minutes (not so coincidentally, about as long as it took for them to consume the cookies they grabbed from the refreshment table on the way in).

Since we arrived at the last minute, we were sitting on the far side of the room away from the door (and the cookies!). There was no way out unless we walked directly in front of the band, in the 3-foot aisle between them and the first row of seats. Instead we made our way to the corner, alongside the band were the kids could see a little better and also spread out, stand up if they liked, even dance a bit.

The drawbacks? Also located in the same place were a baby stroller filled with enticing items (juice boxes, toys, blankets) belonging to another family; a wheeled walker delicately leaning against the wall, ready to topple over at the slightest touch from an inquisitive toddler; and the emergency exit, armed with ear-piercing alarm. Oh, and the band’s amps, speakers, and power cords. Needless to say, I spent most of my time chasing Opie away from danger zones and shushing him when he said “Home! Jacket! Car! Wan’ go home!” At least Jo was pretty happy to lounge on the floor and listen quietly, especially once she was promised more cookies on the way out.

2. Art History
When we went to see my parents, we decided to visit an art museum. (Again, I pause.) The exhibit was called “Monet in Normandy,” so in the car on the way there I talked to Jo about what we would see. I was hoping to drum up some excitement.

I started giving her what I thought was an age-appropriate lesson in Monet and Impressionism. I told her that we would see lots of pictures of flowers and beaches and places outside. I told her this painter loved painting outdoors and that he was always trying to notice different colors, and how the color of something (like a flower or the ocean) could change depending on whether it was morning or afternoon, sunny or cloudy. I told her how he would line up a series of canvasses and work at them for a few minutes at a time, switching as the light around him changed.

I told her how he used a lot of small little brushmarks to create his pictures, and how if we looked at them from far away we would see a scene that we could recognize, but if we got up close we would only see little dots. Here she jumped in. “I know about those dots! It’s called pointillism!”

Good grief! Okay, so a real art historian would say that Pointillism isn’t the same as Impressionism (it came later) but still, I was… impressed. Turns out she learned it from TV. Naturally.

Meanwhile, Opie had absorbed some of the excitement and chirped, “I see paintings! I go museum see paintings! I say ‘HI paintings!’”At the exhibit itself, results were mixed. Both kids did pretty well at walking through the galleries (or at switching from stroller to floor to Mommy to Daddy, repeat) and looking at the paintings, but I was glad that the museum wasn’t yet crowded. I later figured out why Jo seemed a little disappointed. Turns out she was hoping to see the Mona Lisa! Apparently the episode of Blue’s Room in which Blue and company visit a museum taught her about “masterpieces,” and she was on the lookout for one.

Our apologies to M. Monet, but apparently his water lilies didn’t qualify.

3. Literary Criticism
Jo and her friend H. are playing in a tent.

H: Come into the tent, Jo! It’s our club!
J: Yeah! Our book club!

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