Art program at the Riffe Gallery

Columbus has so many art opportunities, one of the free ones we always try to take advantage of is the occasional Sunday program downtown at the Riffe Gallery. About every 2 months when they get a new exhibit they offer a free family art program. This program was for the photography show called Deep Space (which much to Laura’s disappointment didn’t have anything to do with outer space.) It did however have to do with spatial effects, we were inspired by the photographs and the advice of one of the artists to create collages that were supposed to show depth through layering.

Beth decided not to follow the rules on her first piece and just did a story collage using any pictures that spoke to her or were questionably appropriate. (why is that always the case with my kids?)

A little chocolate snack to keep the creative juices flowing.

You can’t create without making a mess. We must have been the most creative group there because we were definitely the messiest!

Beth with both of her collages, the one on the left is her second creation and her first attempt at following the suggested guidelines, while it didn’t use layering to create depth she did create a person using pieces that weren’t just body parts. The one on the right is a hodgepodge of what’s in Bethany’s mind.

Ros LOVED all the cat magazines that were offered, so both of her collages were of all the great cat pictures she could find. Then she got to take home as many cat magazines as she wanted, double bonus!

Here’s Thomas with his picture of a black hole sucking in the universe and ET (and a pot leaf, really I don’t know what is wrong with my kids.) I think the fact that the program was called Deep Space subliminally affected the kids; Louisa, Thomas and Matt all worked on pictures of outer space.

And here is my collage, I also didn’t follow the rules. I just put together pictures that I liked based around an art theme. In my mind it does tell a story but it just seems to lengthy to type out.

Columbus Arts Festival

Its been a few years since I’ve made it to the Columbus Arts Festival and now that I’ve been again I’m kicking myself for ever skipping a year. There were so many great artists with inspiring works, it makes me want to start working on my stained glass windows again. The kids, BJ, my mom and I all walked around the festival several times exploring everything there was to see.

Thomas returned twice to this booth to practice his didgeridoo playing. He kind of looked like he was going to explode when he was playing.

Then Thomas had to have a caricature done, Beth has several and I got one for BJ two years ago when we were in Seattle. So it was Thomas’ turn.

It maybe looks like an evil Thomas, i don’t know, i don’t really think it looks like him.

The boys made some spin art, BJ preferred a spin art that he did where the canvas was actually a Frisbee. We decided it would be cool to do spin art on a t-shirt.

The hit of the day for the kids was this street magician. He did some pretty cool things with those rings.

Then he attempted to chop off Thomas’ hand!

Thomas made great facial expressions through this whole thing. I think he should be on stage, he’s such a ham. You’ll notice there are also 2 carrots in there that also get chopped in half.

and here you see the carrots falling but luckily Thomas hand is still attached.

He came out of it unscathed.

This was a fun piece of living art. He mostly just stood there but every now and then he would sneak up on a little child to surprise them. Thomas swears he hit him with his golf club but I didn’t see that.

After the festival we did a quick walk through the Columbus Museum of Art (its free on Sundays) then we headed over to COSI to see Daniel at work and so the kids could do a few of the things that they like that were closed the last time we went. It was a long, exhausting but very fun day!

Making Valentine’s Day cards

We’re snowed in again, all our classes were canceled for the day so we sat around the table for hours and hours and hours making Valentine’s Day cards for a party this Friday.

Thomas and I worked together on his cards. I did the cutting he did the gluing. We found another great use for my dehydrator, drying all the glue on the cards.

Beth is sewing monogrammed bookmarks for her valentines. With her new sewing machine she doesn’t even need to sit there once she gets it set up. A few types on the touchscreen and away it goes.

Our neighbor Victoria got in on the action too.

A lazy day at home

Besides driving Beth to school I didn’t have to go anywhere today. So Thomas and I had a lazy day at home. It’s finally getting warm out so I had he doors open airing out the house and changed the sheets on the bed. It was even warm enough to dry them outside!
Next we were off to do some cooking, or non-cooking as the case may be. I had to make some more date balls. Since I gave up sugar 3 weeks ago these have been my treat when I’m craving something sweet. My current recipe is 1C soaked raw almonds (ground up in the food processor) then I add a scoop of hemp protein powder, scoop of flax meal, couple scoops of raw sunflower seeds, some goji berries, unsweetened dried cranberries, 2 scoops raw cacao powder, a sprinkle of cayenne powder and a sprinkle of sea salt, all blended together. Then I add about 5-8 pitted dates and blend some more. I like to add about 1/4 C of raw cacao nibs at this point and just pulse them in so they stay chunky. Then I add a couple Tbls of water so it all sticks together and pulse again.

Then just squish them into balls, roll in coconut and store in the refrigerator. Yum!

Then Thomas sliced a whole lot of potatoes for tonights dinner, Potatoes Au Graten. I have this very fancy mandoline that i never use because it’s just to bulky for me. I like using a knife. But Thomas enjoys slicing with it so off he went.

Since we had such great results with last weeks art project we decided to try another one this week. I love the book The Usborne complete book of art ideas. (Thanks for the suggestion Pepper Paints.) We painted castles today following the instructions in the book. We still need to finish some of the detail work with a black sharpie. These pictures were so easy (and not messy at all) You just pick 3 colors of acrylic paint, squeeze a line along the bottom alternating the colors. Then use differnt widths of card board to smear the paint up the paper. After it dries go over it with some black paint that you smear again with cardboard.

Since the weather was so nice Thomas & I walked to the library to return some books and try to find something that he is willing to read. Pretty much the only books I can get him to read are Captain Underpants, the Weird School series and the Ugly Guides. Great literature at it’s best!

Poor Dan is home sick for the 3rd day. Both yesterday and today he got dressed and tried to go to work only to turn around and go back to bed. He did go to the Dr. today and he has pneumonia, so he’s back to bed for a few more days. Which means he has to miss Daniel’s 18th B-day party at my mom’s tomorrow. And our OSU tours on Friday. We’re scheduled for the admitted student tour and the engineering overview and tour.

Finally we made sugar-free, dairy free, chocolate ice cream, to enjoy while we watched American Idol. It was very yummy, but I’ll play with the recipe a bit for next time. Thomas thought it tasted too much like coffee (there wasn’t any coffee in it) I think he was tasting the cashew milk, but Beth and I liked it. I love days like this. I can’t wait for summer when almost all our days are home days!

"That was fun" (and really messy)

My friend over at pepper paints had a cool looking art project. Thomas and I don’t do many art projects now that Beth and Daniel are in school. So after he finished his 20 minutes of school work this morning I suggested we do a painting and surprisingly he was game.

The first step is to use crayons to color a picture. Thomas has been really into pirate ships lately, since he’s been battling Lego irate ships with some friends. So he got a picture for inspiration and colored a great pirate ship.

Next we crumpled up our pictures.

Then we flattened them out and covered them with black Tempera paint. What Pepper Paint failed to mention and I wasn’t smart enough to figure out was that this was going to be MESSY. So I quickly ran downstairs to get us some newsprint so we could paint to the edges without completely covering the table in black paint.

I attempted to rinse the black paint off my picture in the kitchen sink but that was proving to be a huge mess. So Thomas headed straight to the tub with his and rinsed it with the shower. Much easier! Next time we do this we’ll do it outside and use the hose to rinse off the pictures. But when it was all said and done we ended up with 2 really great pictures and Thomas said, “That was fun,” for my non-art kid that’s pretty good!

Thomas’ pirate ship.

My random color picture.