OmegaMom

This week, the dotter announced before the weekend that she had been spending too much time with her friends on weekends, and she wanted to Do Nothing this weekend.  This was okay with us, of course—it was, in fact, very gratifying; you mean you want to spend time with your boring old Mom and Dad?!  Well, okie dokie, then!

Yesterday being sunny and warm and beautiful, we did things outside (I picked up a winter’s worth of garbage revealed by melted snow, and began the unending raking of the lawn) and ran errands.  Today being chillier and cloudy, I promised her we’d go to the movies.  So she and I headed out this afternoon to catch “How To Train Your Dragon”.

I loved it.  I thought it was sweet and funny and uplifting, and I do so like movies that have the nerdy type being the hero.  I even—towards the end—got a bit weepy-eyed.

Then we went off to Cold Stone Creamery for a goodie, and then back home.

I settled down at the computer for a bit of late afternoon computing.  An hour later, OmegaDad came in and said, “You have to come see this!  She’s made a dragon.  It’s splendid, and 3-D.  Bring your camera!”

Herewith the dragon, sans wings and rider:

Later, when she was done with the wings and the rider, she brought it down to me in the office, where I was doing laundry.  She asked me to put it on the internet, so here it is:

And another view:

Coincidentally enough, I had been researching local art classes for her.  I think, now that she’s eight, garnering “most creative” votes from her classmates, willing to freak freely with her art, and getting more and more elaborate with her creations, it’s time for her to get a little bit of more formal instruction.  Neither OmegaDad nor I have much—if any—artistic ability, and definitely neither of us has any training in techniques.  And, with the NCLB mandating Readin’, Writin’ and ‘Rithmetic, there’s no funding or time for such frivolities as art; we’re lucky to have a music class (of sorts) once every three days, rotated with library and phys ed.  Which means we’re on our own when it comes to art work.

In my research, I happened upon a listing of local teachers of various sorts who are willing to accept contracts with homeschoolers (local homeschoolers can sign up with the school district for vouchers), and what a goldmine that was!  Listings of art teachers, music teachers, tutoring, Greek teachers, Russian teachers…and on and on.  (Alas, no Chinese teachers, bah, even though Big City has a thriving Mandarin immersion program at one of the public schools…)

Too late for now, but I will definitely be looking into at least one of the art teachers for next school year.

We are home in Alaska.  It has been an interesting few weeks, with its major ups and downs, which I may or may not discuss later.

When we got on our flight home, OmegaDotter was more than ready to be home.  I was, frankly, more than ready for OmegaDad to do some high-quality one-on-one with the dotter; she is high-maintenance at times, very touchy-feely, needing attention, bouncing, chattering, “on” all the time.  I was not looking forward to six hours of her trapped in an airplane.

We didn’t get a window seat.  We were both very sad about this.  We settled into our seats, and I was hoping (hope-hope-hoping) that the last seat wouldn’t be filled, though we had been informed that it was a full flight, so that seemed unlikely.  And then he showed up, with his tattooed arms, his leather jacket, his bald head, and jocular “I don’t follow directions very well!” comment about carry-on luggage stowage.

We took off, OmegaDotter chattering all the way.

He took out a notebook and began sketching.

OmegaDotter, on the other side of me, peered at his sketchbook and whispered, “What’s he drawing?”

I said, “I don’t know.  I think he’s trying to figure it out.”

She whispered excitedly (and loudly), “I think it’s a flower!  See how it swirls and goes around?”  I looked again, and said to her, “Hm.  It’s beginning to look like a rose…”

She got out her travel art box, and her latest version of Pippi Longstocking on her horse, then leaned in and whispered very quietly to me, “Can I show him my picture?  What is he drawing?”

“Maybe you should ask him?”

She squirmed, shyly.  I chivvied her on (I am trying to get her to ask her own questions, request her own interactions).  Finally, she leaned over me and asked, “Do you want to see my drawing?” 

He said he’d love to.  She handed it over, saying shyly, “It’s—“ and he finished, “Pippi Longstocking!  She’s the one with the pigtails that stick out, and the monkey, right?  That’s very good.  You’ve got a lot of detail going on there!”  She pointed to the sign and said, “It’s Villa Villa Coola.”  They talked Pippi for a short while, then he handed it back.  She asked what he was drawing, and he told her about using light blue as a base for sketching, then coloring over it, any mistakes in the light blue being hidden by the darker colors.  He said that he had started out drawing something else, but he heard her say it was a flower, and he went from there.

Both went back to their artwork.  OmegaDotter added a second story.  He added some wording and shaded in the rose.  She handed him her picture again.  He looked at it, and asked what was around the windows.  She replied, “Wood”.  He asked her what color the wood was.  She quickly began coloring in the window frames, then handed it back to him.  He asked what color the gate was.  She said light blue.  He handed back the picture and she quickly filled in the coloring…this back and forth went on for a few more iterations, with him asking what this area was, and what color should it be, and her making decisions and completing more.  He lent her some of his coloring pencils when she was short a color; he helped her figure out how to make new colors when she didn’t have a particular color.

When she was done, he offered a trade:  His picture for hers.  He wanted hers, he said, so that when she was famous, he could say he knew her when…

I want an art teacher like that for her.  Someone who—rather than prescribing or describing—asks questions and guides her.  She was in heaven.  He was patient and inspiring.

So, to Shane Ruggle, aka “Rug”, the Phoenix tattoo artist:  Thank you.  Thank you, thank you.  Love is a gift, yes, and so is the sharing of your knowledge of art.

Our snow on top of melting snow and ice produced a phalanx of icicles hanging down from the roof beside the kitchen.  I liked the repeating vertical lines behind and in front of the fluffy snow-draped firs.

For your viewing pleasure:  The Big Picture once again does a Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar for December; go enjoy the purty pictures and remember to check back each day!

For more viewing pleasure:  absolutely incredible renderings of a 3-D Mandelbrot set.  Think of a 3-D fractal…Mathematics made beautiful!  I particularly like this one, which the creator has described as “shell life“.

I am enjoying the new C-Pop singers–thank you very much for your suggestions!  Since the dotter is mostly into bouncy dance-type music, I will wander through them picking and choosing (no Deserts Chang, alas!  But I think she’s groovy!).  Fantasia is also a great idea.

To finish things up, here is the world’s very best Poker Face parody, called “NeutraFace”, starring bearded designer geeks having fun.  Enjoy.  (I now want to have bearded nerds emerge from my bathtub):

When the dotter becomes a famous artist, I am going to go around being such a mom.  “Did you see that new painting she did?!  Isn’t it awesome?!”  “You need to buy that sculpture of hers.  Did you know she was making sculptures out of construction paper when she was a tiny girl?  It’s only $3,000!  C’mon!”

Really.  I am in awe of her talent.  My mom, GrannyJ, is very artsy; she was always doodling and drawing and making hooked rugs and making psychodelic creatures out of papier mache.  I, however, find drawing hard.  Hard, hard, hard.  At my ripe old age of *cough* *ahem*, I have the patience to be very careful and do an okay drawing of a horse if I really, really try.

But the dotter…give her paper and scissors and tape and pencils or markers, and she’s off in a dream world, concentrating so hard that she doesn’t hear you.  (Of course, that’s no great feat:  she doesn’t hear you most of the time, anyway, so you end up getting louder and louder until she finally gets all huffy and says, “I’m going!” or “I hear you!” or some variation thereof.)

A few weeks ago she purchased a SpongeBob SquarePants book at the fall book fair.  She’s been reading bits and pieces of it, under duress–she still hates to read on her own.  (Wah.)  (I keep saying to myself that someday it will kick in; my gorgeous niece also hated to read at this age, but now devours novels.)  But I discovered the other day that she has also been…well:

Mind you, these are copies of pictures in the book, so it’s not original work.  But, dayum.  I can’t do that!  Any kid looking at these pics would (a) know who the characters are, and (b) think that some grown-up had drawn them.  Heck, I thought some grown-up had drawn them…someone who snuck into our house, used our paper and pencils, drew them, then snuck out again after leaving the pictures behind.

Did I mention she’s only 7 years old?  And that this wasn’t tracing, but free-hand?

She is so artistic.  It is so amazing.  And it has been there from the beginning; she has always wanted to draw, color, paint, create things.  I’m leaving her to it, letting her figure her own way around–the school has no art classes (none), due to the reading, writing and arithmetic scheduling resulting from NCLB edicts.  They’re lucky they still have recess and their one rotating “special” class.  I’m hoping that middle school will include art classes, but if it doesn’t, by that time she will have full confidence in her abilities and we will have to find an artist mentor for her.

Because art is like breathing for her.

While we were at GrannyJ’s house, the dotter produced this piece of art:

I was truly wowed by this, and wanted to share.  See how the horse has knobby knees?!  And muscles?!  See how the house is all tilty?!  (It’s supposed to be.) 

I happen to know what it represents; I was wondering if others could figure it out.  Put your guesses in the comments!

OmegaDotter’s school has a revolving “extra” class each day–one day it’s gym, another it’s music, and the third is a visit to the school library.

She tends to bring home horse books of one type or another, with, every once in a while, a Jack-and-Annie book or a topical book (The Halloweiner for Halloween, for instance).  Today, she brought back “How To Draw a Horse”.  She was very perturbed, and claimed it didn’t really show “how” to draw a horse.  So while she was spending a lot of time on the phone with her best buddy A., drawing a thousand dollar bill for her and A. to use in their restaurant (A. was similarly drawing money on the other end), I opened up the book and started following the instructions.

Herewith, a horse head:

And a Welsh pony (I think; it may have been a Shetland):

I think they turned out rather nicely.  If the dotter keeps up with her art books, I may end up learning something.  That’s what kids are for, dontcha know?!  Fergeddabout the hugs and kisses and snuggling and all that–it’s a way to learn things you carefully avoided for many years.

I have, sitting on the wainscot ledge by my computer, this:

It’s by a lady named Andrea Pratt, and it arrived this afternoon.  I love it.  The vibrant colors are just what I need in the midst of an Alaska winter.  I want to sink my teeth into the grapefruit, I want to hand some dripping kiwifruit slices to the dotter (she loves kiwifruit, I don’t), I want to be sitting in the sunlight with a plate full of fruit…It’s great.

It was the result of a sale where Andrea asked for bids.  I threw out a low bid–I knew it was low (though not how low, I’m really lousy at this kind of thing)–figuring she’d say no.  No-one else bid for it.  So there I am, the owner of this lovely painting, because for some reason it didn’t “grab” anyone else the way it “grabbed” me.

So since I’m feeling guilty about my purchase, I am asking y’all to go visit Andrea’s blog, Colouring Outside The Lines, and her online shop, Small Art, to see if there’s anything one of you might be interested in.  She also has an Etsy store, which is where I found her to begin with; the Summer/Dance/Birdland/Bloom quartet is similar to the ones I purchased a year ago, which are now hanging in our living room.

Another guilty pleasure, of a totally different sort:  Wilbur Pan, who is the Chris Brown of Chinese pop/rap.  For those of you who don’t (yet) know of Chris Brown (though you will as your girls get older) (I’m told teen girls swoon), think of a Chinese Michael Jackson-esque rap singer.  AmFam turned me on to him, though she doesn’t know it.  OmegaDotter loves his videos. 

Wu-Ha!