Starting a New Painting and Crafting with the Kiddos

I wouldn't let myself blog today until I cleaned up my act a bit. My desk was beginning to collect a strata of papers, craft supplies, half-finished art projects, and half-read articles. I tried to paint yesterday and found it very difficult to find space for my palette, water and brushes among the debris. I even took pictures to show you the before and after, but it's too shameful! You'll just have to take my word for it - it was messy, and now it's clean - and I didn't just shove it in a closet somewhere - promise! Though I haven't touched my banking papers yet, they are neatly waiting in my "to-be-filed" folder instead of gazing at me accusingly with their lilac-inked little yellow faces from my kitchen counter. I am enjoying the Motivated Moms planner I purchased, though I'm not too rigid about following it. Anything that doesn't get done during the week, I put on the list for Saturday.
Despite the clutter, I did make some progress on my newest painting. I decided to go for the raspberries - mostly because I'd already printed off my reference photo. I've taken more time thinking about it as well, and paintings always go more smoothly when they include an element of planning. I'm painting it in the traditional manner of watercolorists, from light to dark. It's hard for me to do that - I'm always seduced by the rich dark shades in a painting, but I thought I'd try to follow the rules this time.
Above is my morning's art project with Rory. I gave her this cool book for her birthday, and it's a good thing I love art, cause she's still a little young to do the projects on her own. It's just one of several drawing and art books for kids that I found on Amazon. It was hard to choose which ones to buy, but I think the three I ended up with all have projects that I can do with my girls, and some they will grow into before I know it! It was fun doing the "princess fairy" dancers and their stage. The dancer reminded me of artist Holli Conger's illustrations.

Well, now that my desk is clean, I can see more clearly what needs to be done. And so I'm off to order some frames, cut some matboard and maybe I'll even stop procrastinating and start sorting through 2007's paperwork for taxes!