The Coat of Many Strengths

I've spent the past several days sewing--something I'm not particularly adept at. Marj Watkins helped me to create a pattern for the "Coat of many strengths" I'm doing with Mrs. Conklin's third grade class. Scroll down a bit to see what we are doing and get a preview of what the kids came up with for strengths.

End of an Era

We took down the play structure so many children played on when Suzanna's School was open. It's the end of an era. I will not open the preschool/kindergarten here again. The class room is now my studio, and I am painting on silk.

I'm not through teaching, though. I'm not quite sure what may teaching will look like. At present, I'm working occasionally with children in other schools. I would like to teach at art museums, and maybe after school programs at the Y. I want to do artist in residences, and art activities with children that support their learning in academic and social areas.

Hundred Family Coat--third grade style

This week Mrs. Conklin's thrid grade class made patches for a "hundred family coat" to offer at the PTSA auction. A Chinese story tells of Boachu, who went to find the missing sun. The people of one village wanted to help him, but they were very poor. Each person cut off a piece of their clothing and from all these pieces, they made a warm coat for Boachu. The coat kept him warm when the demons tried to freeze him.

We talked about the patches of the coat as symbols of each person's strength. We brainstormed our own strenghts, and each child drew something that symbolized their strength on a piece of silk. My job now is to sew them all together into a "hundred family coat" of our own.

Here is a sample of some of the patches: Rhiannon loves music, Lauren is a writer who looks for "just the right word". Jake loves speed; he is showing flames on his dirt bike. John feels "tough". Talia loves her sister, who loves snakes. Mason is pure energy!

River, age 21 months, loves to draw. Most of River's drawings to date have been lines. She's practicing making a mark on paper, exploring color and just beginning to control the marker or colored pencil. She usually names her drawings "moon", even when all I can see is straight lines. Only in the past few days has she started to make something resembling a circle. When she drew the orange lines ("Flower", bottom left), I told her I thought it looked like a flower, and colored in some of the petals. She then picked up the green marker and added the leaf. I think it's our best collaboration yet.

creating a character

Last Friday, Marj Watkins and I did an author/illustrator presentation for Family and Book Fair night at our local elementary school. The idea, based on needs expressed by a 5th grade teacher, was to do a mini-class on character development in writing. She suggested we teach children how to "show" a character's traits rather than "telling" about them when we write stories, i.e. " Laura sang as she helped her mother wash the dishes" rather than "Laura always did her chores cheerfully", or "Laura was a good girl. She always helped her mother."

My part was to support Marj, writer of the Rotaida books, and possibly to teach children a bit about how an illustrator approaches showing who a character is. We each spent two days preparing, in a very logical way, with illustrations and sample sentences. At the last minute, I created a penciled figure children could draw clothing on to illustrate a character of their own, and tossed in my runestone stamps, for some good old hands on activities. 

Of course, we didn't exactly get to do our mini-class. Neither of us works quite as logically as we were trying to teach, and the children went straight to the hands on activities. THEY didn't want something that smacked of academics once school was out! As I joined them in creating a character, I tossed aside the step by step instruction handout I had created and let my character just become who it would as I drew, just as the children were doing.

I think there is a place for both ways of working, depending on where you are in the project: from the inside (letting the character develop as you write or draw) or from the outside (determining the person's character traits and then deciding how to write about or draw the person).

sarah's picture

This is by Sarah, age 5. Her sense of design and color, and her use of tinsel is just delightful. Sarah was one of my first students way back when I started Suzanna's School. She would be....15 years old now!

Scribble art

Here is a fun art project I've done with both children and adults. I remember doing it with my mother when I was a child. The result is always beautiful and the process fun and relaxing. It's a wonderful way to get in touch with the joyful compassionate child in all of us. I recently did this with a group of caregivers who work hard and long taking care of elders and of very sick or terminally ill people. It was so gratifying to see careworn faces relax and smile!

Use a permanent marker for the lines. Just scribble anything! We used Crayola trademark washable markers to fill the spaces with color, then touched the marker with a brush dipped in water. The colors ran together beautifully! Texture was added when the piece was dry using crayon or marker to make dots and lines. 

I got a kick out of Kolo and Kai at Strawberry festival on Vashon. These two youg men (maybe 6-8 years old) stopped by my booth on Saturday after the parade and wanted to know about the rune necklaces I was displaying. I explained that runes are an ancient form of writing, and each symbol stands for a sound--like in our alphabet--and also has a magical meaning. I showed them Kano, or Kenaz, the letter that would stand for the "k" sound in both their names. Oh, Yes! they each wanted a rune necklace, but --alas--had no money. I put one aside for them "for tomarrow".

A bit later, Kai came by, asking if I wanted to buy what looked like his mother's business card, for $1. I'm still kicking myself for saying no. Next, I heard him at the booth next door, offering "a long one for $1 or a short one for .50". I think he sold one of each!

An hour or so later, Kolo and Kai came by with enough to buy one necklace. They had decided to share it. I took their pictures as knight and princess.

A while later, they came by asking if I would sell them another necklace for $1.75, which was all the money they had left. I gave them Thurisaz, "breaking down barriers", to go with Kano, "creating your reality", because they had broken down the barrier of having no money to create the reality they wanted: a rune necklace for each. As Kai slipped the necklace with Thurisaz over his head, he turned to Kolo, wearing Kenaz, and said,"you create the reality and I break it down." I wonder how this will play out in later life?

Dragon Lore

I taught Dragon Lore at the Library in Woodburn Oregon last month, with my sister Jeannie. After learning about Dragons all over the world including Mexico and the USA, the teens created their own dragons on silk. We talked of several ways to deal with dragons including:

dancing and singing them to sleep (Medea in Jason and the Golden Fleece)

feeding them milk (works well with some Chinese dragons)

and staring them down (If you see the two headed horror Sisiutl, do not turn and run, for if you do, you will be spinning the rest of your life. Instead, stand firm and face the two heads until they turn toward each other, and Sisiutl will see his own face, will see truth, and will bless you.)

I love dragons. They are so deeply symbolic not only of our terrors, but also of ancient wisdom, power, and creativity.

I am particularly indebted to Anne Cameron's story of Sisiutl in Daughters of Copper Woman. I highly recommend it for those of us facing the fears of terrorism and economic disaster in these times.

Our Monster Friends

This spring I had such fun doing an art project with first and second graders. We created a banner for the Parent Teachers Association Auction, with the title "Our Monster Friends". To get the children started, I showed them photos of some of the mythical creatures I saw on a recent trip in Thailand, and asked them to consider whether a monster could be friendly (Many of the Thai creatures seemed as though they could be). The kids were particularly interested in the many armed Shiva. We had some wonderful discussions.

The children then drew monsters of their own creation and transfered their drawings onto silk squares. They painted the squares with silk dye, a parent ironed them to set the dyes, and I assembled them into a banner. I worked with the children to write stories about their monsters, photographed their squares individually, and assembled photos and stories into a book. I believe monsters the children created and their stories expressed a new view of "monsters" as different, but not necessarily bad.

Marjorie Watkins and I did our first school visits with her books, Rotaida and the Runestone, and Royal Spy (I illlustrated Royal Spy). That's me on the right saying, "RoTAI DA, RO TAI DA!" We look a little bind because we took our glasses off for the camera. 

The clothes we are wearing are from the era, Charlemagne's time in 800 A.D. We dyed them with onion skin and tumeric to imitate as closely as we could the dyes that would have been available at that time.

The kids seemed to enjoy our readings and our attempts to take them back before cell phones and Ipods, and their teachers smiled the whole time, so I think we were successful. The kids asked great questions and had interesting comments. One girl thought she couldn't live back then with out her cell phone, but her classmates reminded her that she wouldn't even know about cell phones, so she would be fine. We had discussions about herbal medicines, how our ideas of trolls might have come from people with birth defects being cast out from the community, about travel being easier on water than on land.

It was great fun, and we plan to do it again. And again.

Peek a Who?

River, my 13 month old grand daughter likes books, though she often "reads" them upside down or sideways. Her current favorite--at least at  my house--is Nina Laden's Peek a WHO?It has kept her attention longer than almost anything.

Big Brother Mouse

I'm just back from a fantastic trip into Thailand and Laos. As always I had my eyes open for children and for things of interest to children. It seems that children in Laos love dinosaurs too! 

We drove the length of Laos from Namptha in the north to Pak Se in the south. In the north, we traveled narrow windy roads through mountains right out of a Chinese painting, with villages of houses on stilts with bamboos walls, people washing themselves and their clothing at the village spigot and cooking on charcoal fires on the ground. When we got to the capitol city of Vientiane, I found a book store with books in English and Lao--and discovered Big Brother Mouse.

Many of the children in the villages we passed have never read a book except for school textbooks, and some not even that. Books are

 rare, and even many adult Lao people don't think books can be enjoyable, or interesting, or add to their lives in any way. Big Brother Mouse is a project to bring the enjoyment of books even to villages far from roads. The project teaches local young people the computer, writing, and publishing skills to create the books. Even the illustrations are done by young people. Young people introduce books to children in the villages through games and demonstrations. They give every child a book to read, and leave more books with the teacher so that the children can trade their book for another when they are finished reading it. 

Christmas stories

I ran into a parent of two former students of mine at the grocery store yesterday. I asked about the boys, and remarked that they must be getting to the age (at about 6 and 7 years old) where they aren't really sure wether to believe in Santa. She said Santa is real at her house. A friend informed the boys that there is really no such thing as Santa. It's only your parents pretending. Without skipping a beat, the younger answered, "Maybe Santa doesn't come to your house. He doesn't waste his time on people who don't believe in him."

Like a small child, I wonder every year, what is Christmas really about THIS year? I turn to stories for clues.

My very most favorite Christmas story of all time is Trina Schart Hyman's "How Six Found Christmas".  I use it in the classroom to get children thinking about the sounds, smells, tastes, sights, and textures of the Christmas season, and I really love the way it ends: "Christmas is not only where you find it; it is what you make it."

My next favorite Christmas story is "Star Mother's Youngest Child" by Louise Moeri,  also illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman.  When the young star comes down to earth to experience Christmas here for the first time, he prods the first person he meets, a poverty stricken, grumpy, old woman, into celebrating with him. Their Christmas is simple, but "it is enough".

   

Playing with baby

One of the joys of babies and young children is that you get to introduce them to the world, first through your voice and touch, then through giving them safe things to play with and talking with them about the things you see, hear, touch, smell, and taste together. Through play, children develop their minds and bodies and learn skills that will help them be successful their whole lives long. Playing with our children, having fun with our children, makes them smarter! 

Last night I gave eight month old River a lime to play with. She examined it carefully, turing it over in her hands, discovering that she could hold it better with two hands than with one, banging it on the table to see what sound it made. After a while I gave her a satsuma, too. She repeated her process with the satsuma, then picked up the lime again. She examined the lime, then the satsuma. I could tell she was comparing them, noticing how they were the same and how they were different. She won't have the language to express the differences until much later, but she's already examining the world with the eye of a scientist.

I'm doing a series of pastels and watercolors of children and their adults playing together. Here River is enjoying the way her mother is blowing on her cheek, and expressing her pleasure with a smile.

santa in a box

Here's Santa in a box again, next version.

santa in a box

Last year when Zander was three, he was Santa. Every day he wore his santa hat and his santa jacket and pants, and his santa boots and belt, and his santa beard. When other children protested, "you aren't REALLY Santa!", Zander insisted, "Yes I AM!" On the playground he would come up to children and ask what they wanted for Christmas. Under the slide was the house, and the ladder to the slide was the chimney. His favorite game was to make a cardboard box into a sleigh, with the biggest teddy bear as a reindeer, harnessed with silky scarves.

Pretending to be Santa is not unusual in small children. Calla was Santa when she was three, and Case used to wrap up toys from the classroom and, as Santa,  deliver them to his classmates. 

Here is my first attempt as drawing a child pretending to be Santa. Hope to post a better one soon.

The Bookstore Kids

I've noticed that children and adults often see movies or books completely differently. I'm thinking of a time when the adults felt that playground games at the elementary school had gotten out of hand; children were playing "predator". Where did they learn it? Parents in this community are very careful about what they let their children watch on t.v.  It turns out that children had been watching nature shows on public television--which featured a lot of predatory animals.

Sometimes children will ask me to read again and again books that no trade book publisher would even look at. A friend self published a book about her dog, Cap, as a fundraiser. Her mother illustrated it with paintings most third graders would be proud of, and the cover featured a photo of the dog. My preschoolers loved it! Why? The cover and text convinced them it was about a real dog, a friendly dog they might someday meet, and the illustrations were just fine.

The bookstore kids, Amelia (almost 9) and Peobe (5) love a book their mother, the owner, found too amaturish to carry: I Love You More, by Laura Duksta and illustrated by Karen Keesler.  Amelia said "I like it that it says 'I love you more than' so many things."  Was it the repetition? Or more likely that the book really made Amelia feel loved. Perhaps she identified with the child who was being so loved.

two blogs, two audiences

Some of my favorite artists are children. This pirate is by a very talented 5 year old, Mead Gill. 

As I think through this whole blogging  thing and how I want to approach it, I realize that I have two primary audiences I hope to reach. One is children and their parents. After raising three sons and 20 years of teaching young children, I find that interacting with these people is one of my favorite things to do, and media for young children, especially books, really lights my fire. I would rather see "Happy Feet" or "Howl's Moving Castle" than most adult films, and I can't seem to stop buying children's picture books.

The other group of people I enjoy playing with is creative adults, especially people passionate about children's media (such as the people at the kidlitosphere conference I went to in Portland) and artists and free thinkers. 

I would like to focus this blog (childrensplay) more on children and their parents, though Kidlit bloggers will find things of interest here once I get the review process started. On my Sunflowerpeople blog (sunflowerpeople.wordpress.com), I will focus more on artists and on the creative process. At least, that's my plan now. I suspect there will be some overlap, so feel free to put both blogs on your must read list.

sunflower people

I've been painting sunflowers while wall street collapsed and my bank failed. The sunlight shining on and through the petals and leaves was SO joyful! I feel as though I'm mining the sunflowers for joy to share with people in the depths of winter when we all need cheering up. Or now, when worries about the economy have people feeling scared and upset. 

  This blog is in transition. The stories I share are less about my immediate experiences with my current students--as I have none this year--and more about the child within me. Should I start a new blog? Yes, I think so. Look for a new blog soon.

            

I am developing a visual language, Sunflower Speak, using sunflowers to express human 

feelings and situations.