Baby Shower

 The last week has been very busy with projects, all of which I could not post to the blog. I was getting ready for my friend's surprise baby shower. She has two boys and is now having a girl and I wanted to use the opportunity to have a surprise party. I think there is nothing better than a surprise party. To not be expecting anything and then have something delightful happen. What fun.

I made the cake and had so much fun with the gum paste decorations.
The cake was a lemon box cake with milk substituted for water, butter for oil, and an extra egg. I also added the zest from one lemon. Between the 4 layers of cake I added a filling of seedless Raspberry preserves. The bottom of the cake had a trim of fresh raspberries.

 Thumbelina
 

My messy work area

 Flowers drying

 Finished Cake

 With cake work I did not manage to get my gifts completely finished. I will show pictures of the baby gifts once they are complete.

And I just had to share the joy of a good piece of watermelon.

Popsicles and wing walkers.

Yesterday the kids and I met friends and went to an Air Show. It was fun to see all of the stunt flying. and planes. The coolest thing was watching a lady walk on the outside of the plane as it flew. She was on the top, on the wings and even hanging from the bottom. She must be amazingly strong to be able to maneuver in all of that wind. 
Afterwards I went over to my friends house and the kids played in the backyard while I got started trying to put together a new swing set. The instructions were over 80 pages long and it was going to be a big project but I wanted to help if I could. I love to construct things and figure out complicated assemblys. What a sense of accomplishment when things are done.
 Today the kids and I took a picnic lunch to the playground. After playing for about 5 minutes we had to turn around and go home for a potty break. But only once the promise was extracted to come right back. When we came back to the playground there were several kids a few years older than my son playing basketball on the courts nearby and he stood watching them with rapt interest so I sent him over to ask if he could play. They let him join their game and after he looked completely confused at first, I started yelling some directions and he got right into the action. He could not throw the ball high enough to reach the basket but he sure tried. He did very well for a first pick up basketball game. 
After we came home the kids enjoyed Popsicles we had made.

 It took a while for Baby Goose to figure out why anyone would want to eat something that cold but once she did she was loving it.

A little time painting this evening has left me trying to figure out exactly which way the shadows should fall since my reference photos have different orientations.

Sidewalk Paint

Today the kids enjoyed painting on the sidewalk with some sidewalk paint. It was easy to make, and kept them busy for about an hour.

1 cup corn starch.

1 cup water

food coloring

My son experimented with jump painting, and they ended up with a lovely mostly grey painting on our sidewalk.

Babes in progress

 I continued to work on "Babes in a Tide Pool" this evening. It is quite a challenge to paint fabric with flowers and plaid on it but it is working some and will need more development to come.

The back ground was fun to paint and very loose. I was grooving to classic rock on Pandora and my paint brush was going to town. I was amazed at how much paint it took to cover the whole thing. I put more paint out about 4 times each time thinking that that should be enough. I love having so much wet paint on the canvas right now. It just feels so great to add paint when everything is still wet and blends so beautifully and fluidly. This is exactly the feeling that made me love oil paints in the first place. It is nice to be able to look at the pictures of the work because it helps me get a perspective of what really is starting to work from a distance. I think that his clothes and her pants are looking very nice and also the shadows in the tide pool. Still work to do on her face and all skin and hair. Also with blending edges and all of the reflected light.

I have oil paints purchased when I was about eight years old that I am still using, and brushes that were bought well before I was born. Both my mother and my grandmother dabbled in some painting so those supplies were passed down to me. It is so amazing how long supplies can last.

I love the connection that I have to my grandmother when I use her brushes. I was in my early teens when she died after years of Alzheimer's. She never seemed to connect with me probably because I was so young when she was still herself. She was more strict than my other grandmother and we had conflicts over food. I was rather picky and it would become a big deal. There was a certain jello and fruit cocktail salad that she would serve on a bed of prickly lettuce, that I could not stand and it made an appearance at seemingly every dinner.

I like to think that my grandmother would be proud of me now and we would connect over the brushes we have both used and the art we have made with them.

Babes get fleshed out

I started painting Babes in a tide pool during the kids nap and got a first layer of skin tones laid out. After they were put to bed I worked some on the clothes. Painting seems to be going well.

Finger Paint

In an attempt to get my son to loosen up a little with his painting I decided to try finger paints with the kids today. I have a recipe for homemade finger paints I wanted to try and my son always loves a cooking project so we set to work. He loved seeing the mix on the stove and things were going well until my daughter peed on the floor (OK admittedly not the best time to decide to try potty training). In the time it took to whisk her off to the potty and clean up the puddle my finger paints were boiling vigorously. So my paint turned out a little thick but thankfully still usable. Both kids and I enjoyed finger painting however I should have taken more stain prevention measures. My daughter was laying across her painting in an effort to reload her little digits with brightly colored goop.

On my projects I think I have finished up the ship painting and while it turned out reasonably well I don't really like it for several reasons. I do not like copying someone else's work, ships are not what I like to paint and I had no idea what I was doing when I started trying to paint it so I do not think it is my best work. At least I hope there are better things to come. I had to get the painting finished so that I could hang it up and have more room on the top of my dining room hutch for wet painting storage. This can be a problem when one has little space and two small kids who want to touch and help color everything.

I also finished drawing the babes in a tide pool and toned the canvas so it should be ready to begin painting tomorrow. I am nervous about starting because I really want this to turn out well and am doubting myself some.

Red Lilly

I started this painting yesterday during nap time and wanted to complete it in one day. After bedtime I got back to work it is now done except for perhaps a few finishing touches when I look at it in a week or so. It was only 12"x12" so not a very large painting.

I also started laying out a 24" x 36" canvas for the babes in a tide pool painting, that I had hoped to paint while in Florida.

The kids were excited to see a new painting underway when they got up from nap time, and promptly got to work with art creations of their own. My daughter colored one page green, along with her hands, face, and jumper. Thank heaven for washable markers. My son started out trying to paint a flower but as he told Daddy its now "Just a black and blue picture." He is very realistic in his analysis of what he paints.

I would like to start getting the kids into different kinds of art and am currently browsing the Internet for ideas. This was one interesting article.

http://www.pbs.org/parents/supersisters/archives/encouraging-young-artists/

http://www.familyplayandlearn.com/ToddlerandPreschool-PaintingArtActivities.html