MamaStories

Amie’s drawing is becoming more complex and colorful every day. Something must have pushed her onwards. It’s amazing! Let’s see if Mama can keep up with the developments this time. Click on the pics to see them larger and also go to the Flickr set with Amie’s art work to see tags and notes; also visit the Drawing as it Develops page for the history of Amie’s drawing since she could hold a pen.

Amie and Mama in the garden with bumblebee, ladybug / with birds and clouds and a big watering can, and flowers

Amie in the garden (the bumblebees and ladybugs for some reason all have eye stalks, like snails) / Amie and Mama in the garden holding hands.

Amie swimming (on top) in the water with fish and shark with big teeth.

Top to botton: a rainbow, a rocket ship, a horse.

This is what happens when “Mama spends too much time in the kitchen canning!”

(Canned green beans, pickled cucumbers, peach pie filling.)

It’s been a while since I reported on Amie’s art work (she just turned four). Since the burst of creativity when Amie’s grandmother was here, she has been more interested in imaginary play and playing outside. Lately though she has been sitting down to draw for long stretches of time, all of her own accord. It pays off to have all the art materials freely available – even though it is annoying to trip over them once in a while. On the flip side, there’s always a crayon when I need a pen! She also always brings a little book and a pen so she can draw in the car or cart (in the grocery store).

There have been several developments. Amie now likes to do coloring in – not an exercise in creativity in my book – and has started paying extra attention to staying within the lines. But she soon tires of it and moves on to a blank piece of paper, the bigger the better.

On those big sheets she often draw not just “things,” but happenings: events, actions, contexts, interactions, and relations. I had been planning on gently prodding her into taking this next step, but she took it all on her own.

She asked me to annotate the two following drawings, which were made one after the other.

Dictated annotation: “This [arrow to first figure, on left] is Amie lying down on her big pillow with an extra pillow under hear head. She is resting. Next to her is Mama on a big pillow with an extra pillow.”

Dictated annotation: “Amie drew: Our house with the basement (& light switch) and Mama sitting on the sofa, drawing on the big board, and Amie on the balcony feeding the hummingbird at the feeder, and the chimney.” (sorry for the bad photo: my scanner’s fried).

There are a lot of stories in the drawing above, all related to a day in the garden. There’s a lot of grass and two big earthworms – she was in charge of a big bin of all the earthworms we found while raking our yard when sowing grass seed. A girl is watering the grass and the flowers. There’s a crude house. There are two scary faces (securely boxed off, in the lower left corner) – which are part of the Farmers Market decorations these days.

She usually does this kind of drawing fast, with little attention for details. It’s all about what is happening. Sometimes things happen so fast that this is the result:

Or events get overlaid on each other. The next drawing is of two girls underneath a tree. The one on the left pulled down a branch and leaves and dirt fell into her hair, so you can no longer make out her hair and face:

As she draws these she often tells the story out loud – Amie is always the narrator, she often includes “she jumped up”, on top of the action, and even “he said” for dialogue! In these instances she’s not concerned with the result, only with the act of putting it down, seeing her story unfold on paper.

At other times, however, she is very deliberate about the result. Then she  pays special attention, for instance, to the spatial relations of things in a drawing. These houses, for instance, she drew partly with a ruler – she is so proud of herself when she makes that straight box.

And yesterday she was quiet for a long while, then ran into the room and showed me her drawing and her model:

She had drawn the saucer by putting it down on the paper and tracing it. And she proudly said: “I drew it exactly, Mama. But I didn’t like the way the bear’s mouth is all squiggly, because he doesn’t look happy, so I drew his smile straight not squiggly.”

To while away the time she also sits down with her little book and draws “I Spy”. She spots something, says its name, then draws it, laying it out on the page. When the page is full, she moves on to the next page. The next drawings are of the things in the bathroom, made while I was taking a shower. She has learned Dan Price‘s advice: You will never be bored when “making lines”.

You can see how colors are gaining importance for her. A while ago she drew this parrot – I just love the way she got those wings right, and the beak – and then she asked me to put a little colored cross in the parts so she could color it in properly. She was extra mindful of the head part, careful to leave the white part blank. I can’t find the finished drawing, when I do I’ll post it.

And look at these while-away drawings of her cardboard castle/abbey. The colors are so intense!

You can follow the development of Amie’s drawings in the “Drawing as It Develops” series (and I finally got round to updating the list of relevant entries).

This is a long but uncomplicated and happy post ;)

Yesterday Amie told me” “I want to see all the people and the cities and all the things in the whole world, and listen to all the music” [we were listening to a Mozart symphony]. “I want to be a music listener, and an artist, and a science too. And a drawing maker.”

She has been doing a lot of arts and crafts, especially while her artist grandmother was here. There were some collaborative pieces, some parallel work.

One evening we all sat around the table and drew each other. So much fun! The first is Amie’s portrait of Dada (her grandfather) of that evening, the second she made later on. Notice the extra circumferences and lines:

She made those same “extra” lines in this drawing of Piglet (from Pooh):

Such emphasizing is also visible in this next one, which she is still working on: the Bog Monster!

I love that piggy nose, those red, goggling eyes, and its humongous body all around it!

She is obviously experimenting with several techniques and “visions”. Sometimes there is a great attempt at naturalistic realism.  In the second picture, above, Thhaam was painting from this picture of a moth that I took in May, and Amie also drew it, and the stone it is “sitting on”. She got all its wing parts:

Funny, how she is still drawing from a concept of an animal. Same here, in this drawing of a dinosaur from her book. She got those facial  plates and scales right,  but insisted on the human-shaped body:

Later on she wanted to paint a cat and we gently prodded her about that body shape. “How many arms does a cat have?” “None!” “How many legs?” “Four!” Are the legs underneath its body?” “Yes.” The result has been stolen (taken by her aunt, I suspect, before I could properly record it!), but I asked her to draw another cat (this time without making any suggestion) and she obliged:

The small drawing in the bottom left corner is of a chair: a great experiment with dimension and perspective. Which brings me to this, the drawing of the ocean at Cape Cod (my apologies to the artist for the bad picture):

That’s the sea, and the waves. When we were looking at a map of Cape Cod, I pointed out the land and the ocean. She asked: “But where is the sky?”

It must all look so different, in her head!

Lastly, here she is drawing with chalk on our driveway, hidden behind the flowers she and I spent two hours potting up yesterday (that’s another post):

But, on the other hand, she brought home a little bug from summer camp (of which she missed the last two days and was heartbroken). The doctor nearly sent us to the ER (all the way into Boston!), but she made a great recovery right there – the threat of a shot helped. Then she passed the bug on to Baba and myself.

Our new house – bought a year ago – came with two rose bushes, and this being our first Spring here, we got to see the roses for the first time. Amie also got to draw and paint one:

The context was thus:

Grandmother sitting by, also drawing the rose, and grandfather, on the other side of the world, witnessing via webcam.

Sorry for the silence, we’re so busy, working in the garden, on our guestroom, and playing and crafting, and not much energy left for blogging.

There is more portrait sketching. Amie made several fast sketches of Thhaam:

And here is a glimpse of Thhaam’s portrait of Amie:

Amie’s grandmother arrived to stay for 5 weeks. Amie brought a bouquet of buttercups to the airport and rode the escalators while waiting for Thamm to appear.

They settled into a regimen right away, part of which is “school”, “where Thamm pretends to be a teacher, and I pretend to be a student, and our house pretends to be the school”. They read and write and most of all engage in lots of crafts.

Here they are sketching each other – Thamm is attempting to sketch her every day:

Here are the results:

Amie (to one of her dolls): “You know, my Thamm is good at arts and crafts. But she still needs to use an eraser… That’s because I can’t sit still.”

So true.

We have also been working on a dragon. After rescuing some boxes from the recycling bin, we wrapped them in newspaper and painted them – the newspaper takes the paint much better, and as a bonus it gives the wrinkly look of dragon skin! Gruesome teeth were added.

Wait, he (she?) is not finished yet! More boxes and paint and glue to come…

Now I really AM tired! We spent the day digging a long one foot trench, then installed the fence. We’re talking 150 feet of trench/fence in mostly stone and rootbound soil. We still have 1/3 to go. For budget reasons we went with simple chicken wire, three feet high. It doesn’t look too bad – in fact, it’s quite unobtrusive – and it will do for now: it will keep the rabbits and the dogs out… We don’t know about gates yet, but tomorrow I will plant the seedlings anyway. The plants’ risk of stress due to being rootbound is starting to outweigh the risk of being eaten by the bunnies.

While working we frequently heard thunder, coming closer. Suddenly it turned very dark, and the tall trees all around us began swaying like crazy, and there was this feeling in the air, of static, and Amie started crying. We were ready to run for cover, but that was it, and two minutes later it was sunny again. It had been like a giant, invisible hand had swept by us. The next town over had major hail. Luckily we escaped that: the seedlings were out on the patio!

But what an experience! So eerie and exciting and I was so grateful that we were out there, in the thick of it. I am having many of those moment of gratitude when I’m out there. Like when I was ruminating the soil and soil horizons, while digging of course, and suddenly I realized: “stuff doesn’t ‘break down’. It is broken down”. A minor difference in grammar, a huge difference in reality.

Amie had her last day of school on Friday and we spent that week making thank you cards for her teachers. She chose flowers as the theme. I drew some, which she watercolored, and then she drew some flowers in a vase herself. She isn’t much into drawing lately – she’s always outdoors – but once she is inspired she makes works of art!

She also caught several caterpillars (inchworm?) and gently put them in a jar. She  gave them leaves for food and housing and talked with them. There was no lid, so there was often an outcry about those creatures attempting to escape.

The other day Amie made two drawings of her friend, Abby, for her birthday.

Here Abby has fingers. Five fingers, Amie counted them out, one by one, as she was drawing them. As for the other hand, she explained the fingers are hidden in a fist. Abby also wears sleeves and a long skirt. And there’s also a little flower.

In this one the legs are interesting. “One leg is in a trouser but the other one isn’t.” “Why not?” I asked. “This leg felt warm and the other one felt cold, that’s why.” “And there are no ears? And no hair?” “No, those are invisible.”

Sometimes our conversations about art remind of this - so hilarious!

In other news I transplanted all the Thyme and Sweet Marjoram seedlings and some lettuces into their own pots. Of all the work on the garden I’ve done so far, I think transplanting tiny seedlings is my favorite: so grounding, so relaxing!

I found Amie’s Map Book. It had gone missing in the move.  The Map Book, or Place Book, is a collection of maps, pasted in or drawn, of where we have been living and traveling (you can see some more scans here), with anecdotes and journal entries addressed to Amie.

Amie became very interested in maps when we went to visit the Great Meadows Wildlife Refuge last week. She was given some trail maps by the officer there. When we got lost trying to find another Refuge, she helped me by reading the big road atlas. “It says North, Mama, we need to go North!”  she piped from the back seat. She fell asleep with the big book on her lap.

When we came home she asked for more maps, so I dug up a whole bunch of them (I’m a sucker for city maps, museum maps, road atlases…). All these she arranged on her table, like at the Refuge. She won’t let anyone touch them.

Then she sat down and drew a map of her own, to take on a Heffalump Hunt.

She understands the basics of what a map is for, that it represents a place, a part of space. She knows the words “North, South, East and West” and can place them on the compass rose. She learned this from the map at the beginning of The Hobbit and from her globe, which she got for Christmas. She has a rudimentary understanding of them as directions.

It’ll be great fun, exploring them with her, and the compass, and dimension and scale, legends and contours…

In the meantime I’m going to steal some of those maps and get the Map Book up to date. There are trips to Singapore to add, to India, to the White Mountains and to New York City, to Washington DC, and into Boston. And I can’t believe our new place isn’t in it yet: our land, our neighborhood, the ponds and the lakes and the houses of her friends and school…