Sketchbook, Kids, and Collaborations

I finally did it. I went out and bought myself a new spiral bound standard black cover sketchbook. I do have a lovely sketchbook that I bought on Etsy several years ago from Gnewfry, my first purchase ever on Etsy. It's great for some things, but I just don't use it often enough. I really like those hard cover big black sketchbooks. They're easy for me to carry. I can draw a lot on a big page. I can shove a pen on the spiral. I can personalize it. Nothing is sacred, which makes it perfect for sketching without self-consciousness. I'm back to doing fifteen minutes a day- anything, sketching, collage, paint, whatever.
Here's the back cover. I use Modge Podge to glue things on.

I used to be quite strict about not letting my children draw in or touch my sketchbook. Well, I've given up. I still don't like them drawing in it, but I do ask them to create drawings on other paper that I can collage into my sketchbook. My sketchbooks are the closest thing to a diary that I'll ever keep. My children ought to be a part of them. If the books survive that long, my children will hopefully keep and treasure them, as insight into their mother, long after I'm gone.

I'm also finding that I can learn a lot about making art from my kids.

The left side is the inside front cover, filled up with kids paintings.

The paper is thin, so I do the ink drawings on one side and paste the collage stuff on the back side. Yes, it warps the paper, but nothing is sacred. Remember?

Here's that butterfly sketch that you wanted to see crunchy.

My daughter loves to play Teacher. The role suits her well. She has the perfect facial expressions that she was either born with, or learned from her great daycare teachers, or both. She keeps wanting to play Teacher and give me art lessons. I finally thought- why not? I've been wanting to take a workshop, do something that I'd never do. What could be better than to learn Kid Art? I especially enjoy her spontaneous use of line and color. Here are our creations. We each get one piece of paper and share the box of Prismacolors. She draws a line or shape, then I color it. She chooses the colors she wants me to use or occasionally lets me pick my own. In these two pictures, her version is on the right side. Mine is on the left.

I like how her lines can have so much more variation in darkness and texture. She is still a kid. She doesn't control her fingers perfectly or deliberately, as we adults do. I would have never put a huge solid black ink shape in the middle of a colored piece, but it works on hers. I'm always trying not to abuse the Prismacolors. She doesn't care, so she'll drive them right into the paper. She has a quality to her artwork now that we adults have to work to re-create. I'm so lucky to be able to take lessons from her. I can see that I need to work harder at it . I'm so glad that we're using my expensive prismacolors (her idea), instead of my cheapie idea of wanting to use her crayons.

My next goal is to get the kids texturing metal in the studio. I need to buy another pair of ear muffs and get a safe clean spot set up for them. They may not want to do it for long, but they always love a little hammering. I think they'd also like to punch holes in metal with a centerpunch. It would be fun to do some collaborative collage jewelry with them.

Please take this topic to your own blogs. I'd love to see how your children teach you art and how you incorporate them into your creative activities. Let me be clear. I still have some strict limits, based on their safety and my own sanity, but we're making progress here...