this great forest

When my son is home from school, morning muraling has become somewhat of a tradition while the baby naps. I'm trying to keep the peace while I solo parent for a week (my husband is off making a movie!!).

Wow. I think this is the coolest painting my 3-year-old has ever made. This to me describes a child’s art process - give them the tools and let them go for it. You have to let go a little bit. He went bananas on the mannequin with the squeeze bottles, and the gobs of paint that dropped off settled into these concentric circles on the paper. Look at the painting that results!

Salt paintings drying in the garden

I need to get more tarps in my home.

It was cool for my kids and I to stumble upon artist Shayne Dark installing his work at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. They magically sat patiently and I got to have a little chat about matte blue and modern art. Those photos have no filter and it's just painted wood - the pigment just glows when the light hits it! Then when we got home we made a painting based (loosely) on what we saw.

We set up a nature table and attempted making our own watercolor with marigolds and a mortar and pestle.

Enjoying painting out in our little city garden after baby sister goes to bed, and getting ideas for art class.

Nighttime vellum painting in our new studio while listening to the rain and fireworks. Happy 4th!

Our new home studio (in progress)

I have so many things to say about the past 6 months which I have spent living in my childhood home. I'll just choose a few words: Childhood. Life cycle. Creation. Death. Mother. Son. Daughter. Pain. Healing. Endings. New Beginnings. Thank you to my husband, my children, my mother and father, and the lovely families we've met while my son attended my old nursery school. Thank you to the house that first held me 30 years ago and has now brought so many new memories. It's a wonderful place to be a child. We finished up this time with a going away party and a collaborative painting project. Now time to pick up and start over again. 💗

I'm gonna let a bunch of 3 and 4 year olds paint over this in a couple days. I painted this in Rome in 2001. Farewell, old sleeping dog. Stay tuned.

Vellum is a fine parchment traditionally made of calfskin and used for books and scrolls. Modern "paper vellum" is a synthetic material, used for a variety of purposes including blueprints and technical drawing. Its smooth, durable quality makes it a very satisfying painting and drawing surface that can be "erased" with a brush and used over and over.

I have some very specific memories of nursery school, especially the art projects. Preserved for posterity in my class photo is the time I took an orange bit of craft material we were using for our dinosaur dioramas and wore it as a ring. I thought I was going to get in huge trouble. So it was with big feelings when today I went to my son's nursery school, the same school, to do a little painting project with the kids. A personal favorite - fizzy painting with baking soda, vinegar, and watercolor. Perfect combo of art and science. The kids were awesome, so focused and enthusiastic. Watching them skip to the playground afterwards warmed my heart. In the middle of the line was my child, the littlest one - just like I was.

Painting with watercolors and practicing with scissors

I think I'll start a new blog: "My 3-Year-Old is a Better Painter than Me"

My 3-year-old has requested black walls for his new bedroom, and since I'm a pretentious Brooklynite, I'm obliging. I'm excited to cover those walls with his colorful paintings.