Chuck Close Self-Portraits

 As the kids get older, I've been trying to challenge them a bit more with more difficult art projects. Sure, we still do our fair share of free creative time. But when we are doing particular projects, I've been trying to find some that require a certain technique or study a particular artist. To that end, we are sharing our Chuck Close Self-Portrait project over at Honest to Nod and I kind of love them! It wasn't easy for the kids, but they stuck with it. And they've since reported back that they are trying the style out on their own at school too. Head over to Honest to Nod to check them out!

Fake Plastic Trees: Oil Pastels on Wax Paper

Mom finally let us at the oil pastels the other day -- not hers, of course, but the ones she has been saving for us until she felt like we weren't just going to eat and throw them.  Well, really until she realized that we were likely always going to do that.  So there was no point in waiting.  She thought Cami would really like drawing with these since they go on so smoothly -- especially on wax paper.  But I threw everyone for a loop and spent a pretty long time drawing with them.  The wax paper ripped easily at the edges so it took me a while to draw without tearing my drawing into pieces in the process.  I asked mom to add a pirate ship, including a crows nest, and pirates to one of my drawings.  But I really surprised mommy when I told her that I was "drawing a tree" next.  Usually I just tell her I'm "not sure" or "nothin" when she asks what I'm drawing.  She mumbled giddily about me beginning to draw pre-symbolistically.  I just told her that unless she was drawing symbolistically, she needed to make that crows nest a bit more accurate.