I have decided not to go photo exploring this weekend because jumping out of the car with both kids waiting is just too difficult and it's dangerous for them to be left inside the car while I'm out getting potentially arrested for not minding my own business. I will wait until Monday when Little S is back to school and I have some time in the morning.
Here are some of Little S's pictures from last week. It is so fun to see the evolution of his artwork going from scribbles to actual people. He has been drawing nothing but people lately! The people in these photos are pictures he drew of me and Seb and the frightening Damien-esque drawing in black and white is the "mean boy" at his school, Isaac who he talks about often. He was really angry when he drew it and I think he was venting some frustration over this kid who he has some issues with. Isaac gave Little S a black eye and he told us by demonstrating a fist in the eye and then later pointing out the kid and telling me "he hit my eye" but his teacher said that he ran into a door and that's how he got hurt. Right okay who to believe? I think I believe my son because he has nothing to gain by lying. (sounds funny but see comments).
My friend was teasing me about putting my kids artwork on my blog and it is kind of goofy yes, I am definite stage mother material, but I am doing it more in an effort to share the evolution that a child's work can take and the importance of creativity in the home. I grew up with pad and paper as my constant companion and it has always been important to me to draw and to paint and take pictures. I can't imagine a home without doing artwork every single day, and I really strive for that every single day with my son. It's as important as brushing our teeth around here!
I also wanted to share this link. It's from the 2006 TED conference where Sir Ken Robinson speaks about creativity. He happens to mention Gillian Lynne who is an idol of mine, an amazing woman I admire and adore. I wish I could upload and share a documentary I have about her. She is such an inspiration and has created some of my favorite choreography of all time marrying it into one of my favorite musicals of all time. What's not to love. I love the story he tells about her and I love that he hits on so many of the reasons why unschooling is the right choice. I feel like getting up and applauding because he is putting into words what I find so hard to explain sometimes. And he's funny. You will love this one and be really insired by what he says.
Finally I wanted to share a book I like that's lots of fun, Drawing for the Artistically Undiscovered from the loveable Klutz series. This book is great as a motivator to draw. It's so creative and fun and will get even the most timid artists to come out of their shells. It shirks off all inhibitions and makes you laugh out loud a lot. Meanwhile you will feel your creative juices flowing and create some really interesting, offbeat stuff. It isn't just for amateur artists either because it will give you lot of new ideas for creating. In fact it isn't even really a drawing book per se so much as an idea book. I'll try to share some of the little exercises from it in the next few months just to give you a taste of it. (Jess thank you I have loved this book forever!)
Did you do anything creative this week?
7 comments:
What is most interesting about seeing those four pictures laid out together like that is how differant they are. The styles are differant in each one, even down to how the eyes have been drawn/painted.
Our daily reativity has been curbed as the house is being pulled apart and we're staying with my parents....my mum isn't too keen on messy creativity and my two don't know how to do it neatly ;) It'll be just pencils and crayons for a while till we get back home.
Poor Little S with his eye. I have to contradict you though and say that it's not true that your son has nothing to gain by lying and therefore no reason to. I have no idea whether he has lied or not, but he could lie for all sorts of reasons, from wanting the other boy to be in more trouble to lying just because he has forgotton what actually happened. Three year olds generally lie to be seen as good, not to try and get someone else in trouble for malicious reasons. Jaya is always tellng me all the mess in their bedroom is down to her brother when I know for a fact it was her as I watched her do it! She has learnt though that I like it when she keeps things tidy so she just says what she thinks I want to hear. If Little S thought you might think of him as "not good" for running into a door then he'd make something up to cover himself. The truth may be that the boy hit him, or it may be that he ran onto a door. Or it may be a mixture of both and that in fact he ran into a door AND got hit and who knows which one gave him the actual black eye? He is obviously not comfortable with this other boy though so it's good you're keeping an eye on it. Hey once you guys move he won't have to see him again :)
Haha I do sound like the self rightous mother there. I was just not wanting to get into the whole "Isaac is the son of the devil" speech.
What I guess I meant was that in this instance he has nothing to gain because before this whole black eye thing this boy hasn't even been spoken about and he really didn't know him, but now he's talking about him non-stop. I didn't really feel like in this instance he was trying to gain anything by pointing out this random person. I guess I didn't explain it very well.
I know kids lie but Little S never lies-- it's funny. He's Rainman, gives all the details very methodically even when we don't need them. Points out the obvious, --observes in complete detail. It never occurs to him to lie. He always tells me when he's done something bad--comes straight in and tells me. It is unusual I know because all my friends who have three year olds say they tell some whoppers but he never tries to cover up a truth, or at least not up until now. I guess you'd have to know him to see what I mean. That said he will exaggerate where his sister is concerned, like he'll say "she pushed me" when she kicked her legs and he was sitting next to her and got bumped by her legs. He has everything to gain from vying for my attention! :)
Isaac is a big problem at the school. The big complant we have about Montessori, or at least this one is that they mix the kids so that all ages play together, so you have Isaac who is six in a class with Little S who is three. I hear an Isaac story or a Diego story every few days now "Isaac hit Thibaut in the mouth" because these kids are much bigger. Another mother told me it is awful at this school and her son had a huge problem with getting roughed up his first year. She said the school is embarrased about it and won't tell the truth becase of course they want all the parents to like each other and it is a private school in a highly competitive market. There are about 20 Montessori schools in this town! It's crazy how often parents here switch schools here and they don't want to lose business.
I absolutely love your blog. I love how you write, the things you notice and talk about, your perceptions of what is truly important and good about life and living life. I haven't read all of your entries, but I've read enough to feel a connection to your ideas and yearnings.
About the artwork - OH YES! It's such an incredible gift to be part of your child's encounter with crayons, paper and all other writing/drawing implements. Little S's drawing that you posted top right is extremely similar to a drawing I have; it was done by one of my sons, who is now 25. It would be interesting to know later on, how little S develops and if he at 25 resembles my son in other ways! As for the timelessness of art, I would just like to add that my mother has on her wall a framed drawing of each of my 5 children at ages 5 and under (and each had a completely different style!).
P.S. About truth and lie, my motto is, believe first in your child's version until proven wrong. From then on, beware! (although the child usually learns the lesson and works hard to earn back the trust).
Hey its Fned's mama! I am so jealous that she has a mom who blogs. And I love that you guys are doing the photo project together. That's wonderful.
Thanks for the compliments. You have such an interesting family.
The artwork is great. That kid Isaac does look mean!
As for the black eye, I would believe your son. I don't think teachers always tell me the truth about what goes on at school, especially when they are this young and especially in cultures like the ones where we are living (Mexico and Italy). Although when Jack came home last month with a black eye one day, they did say he was pushed by another kid into the corner of the playhouse outside and Jack's story (or what I understood of it) seemed to coincide. So maybe they are pretty honest where he is now. (They most definitely were NOT at the old school we took him out of after three months.)
The truth is probably somewhere in between, unless like you say, s never lies. You know your kid better than anyone else.
We got out the paints last week. I'll be posting a few pics on the blog soon. The funny thing is that every time I mention doing a creative project to my friends around here they all say that they just let the garderie or maternelle do those types of things. So thanks for posting these things so I don't feel like some freaky over-achieving mom or something.
That said, Sophia's drawings are just starting to look like what she tells me they are! Maybe because we don't draw every day. ;-) Maybe Little S is a bit older (Sophia was born in April).
And she's starting to tell a few tales. I hesitate to call it lying because in some ways I think she just can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality just yet. But, of course, you know Little S better then his teachers do so you should trust your instinct there.
Erica that's awesome. I think the French have a really hard time with creativity. I was always a fun english teacher (assistant teacher in fact) and when I asked my students to get creative with cutting up magazines or imagining a role they froze like little deers in the headlights. I really had to walk them through this kind of stuff. That was my first clue that creativity was squashed in France. Thirteen years old and afraid to have original ideas...scary!
I think in France creativity is seen as a step in maternelle that everyone just has to get through and get over with. It's sad for the kids because they lose a wonderful window of opportunity to expand that and they become better learners when they have that ability to turn on creativity like Ken Robinson says in the video I posted.
Little S was born Oct. 2004, so he's 3 and a half. I read where kids must go through this scribble stage and it's funny but it's like they have to release all this kinetic energy onto paper ! I have a stack of scribble drawings a least 3 inches high from Little S and he was really like a mad hatter going at it all day long "scribble,scribble,scribble". Then the next stage is oval or circle people with tendrils who look like squids. Every kid precedes face drawing with these squid people. Then they reach the stage of copying things. It's facinating to watch the process unfold. Drawing every day you get to see it the moment it happens --like from one day to the next
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