Week by Week, 16/52: Little Artists

Time and again, I've tried to entice John Paul into some sort of artistic venture. He sometimes enjoys drawing circuits, maps, architecture... But nature journaling? Not. His. Thing. And really, drawing anything was like pulling teeth.

Well.

That has changed, and rather abruptly!

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I grabbed a set of nice colored pencils, mostly for my use, as an Easter gift for the family (I used it as an excuse to replenish many of the art supplies!). It's amazing what a difference they make! John Paul is really into reading the different color descriptions, and looking at all the different grays he asked, "Which color do you think would be best for drawing a wolf?" "Well," I replied, "A wolf will really use a lot of different shades of brown and gray all mixed together..." "Can you show me how to draw a wolf?" "Well, I'm holding Edith... But let's see if we can find a tutorial on YouTube?" 

And just like that, he was hooked! He drew an awesome wolf, and asked for a tutorial the next day, but wanted me to surprise him. Well, silly me, I thought a Star Wars tutorial would be fun and now that's all they want to draw! We have a whole gallery going up the stairs now, and it's spilled over into the boys' room, where Peter was absolutely tickled to see a drawing of Yoda over his light switch!

I just picked up this nature journaling book from the library and it's amazing - I'm going to buy a copy for us when I get all our homeschooling books for next year. And the big kids have been leafing through it, trying different techniques and learning about perspective without my help!

Apparently it just takes time, nice materials, and a little bit of expert instruction (thanks, YouTube!) to make this happen. Last night I told John Paul it was time to go to bed, and for the first time ever he said, "But Mom! I'm drawing!!!" (Although that time it was inspired by this book, super-fun for silly drawing but not exactly an educational masterpiece... He's probably getting it for his birthday, though!)

Edith has decided she's quite interested in the grab-and-chew type of baby toys, so we're spending long periods of time holding things and dangling them for her. Yes, we have a play mat for that... But the moment I put it on the floor, the other kids immediately take it away and use it as a tent or something else... Plus it's broken in many, many places! Might need to grab a new one next time we have a baby.

The big kids kept filling Easter eggs with jellybeans and putting them somewhere "safe" so they could eat those jellybeans for dessert. Then Peter would find them and eat all the jellybeans. I think he spent all of Easter week on a perpetual sugar high...

Andrew has been letting the kids watch the Star Wars movies, one each week, and that plus the Star Wars trivia book they checked out from the library has led to a complete and total obsession with Star Wars. John Paul puts on his old black St. Benedict robe and Cecilia asks me to put up her hair, Rey-style, and they run around staging elaborate fights in the yard and writing meaningful notes to each other and leaving them in secret places. "Rey, I need you to spy for me again!" "Luke, come quick!"

My favorites, though? "LUKE I HAVE TO GO I LOVE YOU" with multicolored hearts drawn along the bottom (there were a lot of "I LOVE YOU" notes because that's one of the only phrases Cecilia can spell on her own), and "LUKE I NEED HELP Get ANAKIN QUICK" drawn on shiny paper with a picture of an igloo and several dried violets glued to it. 

Because even when time is of the essence, you don't skimp on the dried flowers.