If you find your family a little bland and typical, why not add a good dose of quirkiness and create a fictional world with your family members in the starring roles! If there are days when you think your brother comes from another planet, your sister from the Addam’s Family, or your parents have stopped making sense, you’ve probably got lots of material to work with already.
Filed under drawing
This is a terrific idea for a birthday party invitation and if your child is old enough to write, he or she is old enough to proudly enjoy making these on their own. And now, a word of advice anonymously lurking on the internet and worthy of sharing, if you didn’t already instinctively know:
“Let Us Spray”
A joy of which I’ll not partake
Is eating children’s birthday cake.
To “blow out” candles, in a word,
Is really patently absurd:
Each puff contains sufficient moisture
To propagate your av’rage oyster.
So, Birthday-Boy and ditto-Daughter,
Withhold from me your whiff of water.
I do not need some little squirt
To atomize on my dessert.
Among the things I will not do
Is have my cake and drink it, too.
Filed under invitations
Vasarely Noir Mauve. Photo: http://www.thefind.com
Artist Victor Vasarely was born in 1906 in Hungary, lived much of his life in France, and died in 1997. Today would have been his 104th birthday. He is considered the founder of Op Art, a style which he began developing during his black and white period, from 1950-1965. This period, his most famous, is what will be explored in this project.
In Op Art, also known as optical art, artists used colors, lines and shapes to create the impression of movement. Vasarely’s use of color and shape made some of his paintings appear to jump out from the canvas, like the one above.
Filed under Art Movements, Artists, Op Art, Victor Vasarely
I doodled endless geometric shapes while talking on the phone as a teenager. And when sitting in a classroom where the subject matter wasn’t exactly captivating, I seemed to get lost in eyeballs, swirls and the names of bands I was obsessing over at the time. Today, it’s the daily paper that’s targeted. It seems almost impossible to resist coloring in a few teeth of the poor bloke who was unfortunate enough to make the front page.
Doodling is a great activity to get your creative juices flowing, and drawing skills are completely irrelevant. The trick is to avoid thinking too much about what you should do. Just go with the flow and enjoy the moment.
The very talented illustrator and author Maurice Sendak, has this to say about doodling:
“I have been doodling with ink and watercolor on paper all my life. It’s my way of stirring up my imagination to see what I find hidden in my head. I call the results dream pictures, fantasy sketches, and even brain-sharpening exercises.”
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