And lastly, we had to give our plant a new home. We discussed how when plants are little, they get all of their food from the seed they came from. But eventually, they need more food from the soil. So not only did a plant need a larger home- it needed soil too.
As I was saying yesterday, here, it was a lot of fun to watch that little seed sprout its roots, then stalk, then leaves. In the end, we had a whole bean plant. Which is always the plan, of course, when you plant a seed- but still amazing, nonetheless. (Especially to me as a Mama these days, few things in my life go according to plan!) The first thing we did of course, was to draw our little plant.
One of the most important things I tried to share with my students, besides the importance of self-expression, was that art does not happen in a vacuum. That all artists did- and still do- use art as a means to better understand, or react to, the world around them. For example, how Impressionist paintings developed as a reaction to the rising popularity of photography. Society thought photography could capture life better, so the Impressionists responded by demonstrating all photography couldn't capture: subtle nuances of color and light captured in defined, decidedly non-photographic brushstrokes. We wanted to do some capturing ourselves, by exploring the under-soil mysteries of the plants we love so dearly.
The mural painting continues! As I shared last weekend, here, there is quite a bit more to do but I'm really embracing the progress. This last Saturday I was able to spend hours- yes, hours- painting, much of it in a completely silent room which is quite the novelty these days (wink).
"A
Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the
week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause,
savor and remember."
I remember how much more comfortable I used to feel creating art with older kids than little bambinos. When Isia was about nine or ten months old, I finally understood her need to express herself. Me and my art education degree were a little embarrassed not to have realized it sooner, but I was completely new to this whole raising babies operation. So we started finger painting with pudding and drawing in flour and doing simple magnetic art, but I didn't begin drawing with her until much later. I thought she'd just eat the crayons- not draw with them. I now know that babies can play (well-supervised) with crayons and how much they enjoy making their mark:
This is eleven-month old Billy drawing on the paper. He loves making marks on the paper, and often looks up for admiration- and lots of clapping- with each new mark. I'm still navigating how to best support my little ones with their mark-making- but that's part of the journey, right? (smile)
