The other day I was over at Dirty Footprints studio, and I came across a lovely video on using pastels. Dylan and I watched the video several times – he was fascinated, and so of course, next thing we knew, out came all the pastels and some stencils. We didn’t have a circle stencil, unfortunately (next up: a trip to the dollar store!) but we had a few other shapes that Dylan liked just as well. And here is his first pastel piece:

And here is the gorgeous video on playing with pastels from Dirty Footprints Studio:

Collage: Train and Snowman

Stick Figure, made with paper, tape and thread

I think this following picture is an owl or something with wings. He’s sleeping right now, so I’ll have to ask him in the morning when he wakes up.

Collage Creature

Robot Creatures … on our dining room wall

Flowers

He painted these flowers for the guests for his upcoming birthday party. We’re having a family party, and he’s very excited, counting the sleeps before the party comes.

Shark

Sharks and dinosaurs are a new favourite. This is a shark (hammerhead, I think he said). When I marveled at the fact that he covered all of the paper, he pointed out that he needed to paint the entire background.

It’s good to see him back to doing his artwork!

First up is a very sweet envelope with hearts:

Envelope with Hearts

Then we have a slice of pepperoni pizza – not that Dylan likes pepperoni pizza. He prefers cheese only, but I guess when you’re drawing, the pepperoni slices are more interesting than just cheese.

Pepperoni Pizza

And finally, there’s this really cute picture of fruits and veggies – I think maybe Dylan was thinking about inventing a new Wii game:

Fruits and Veggies and Wii

One of the sweetest things about Dylan is that he insists on seeing everyone out the door when they leave. We all get this special treatment – he’ll race to the front door to give hugs and kisses before you go, and then you can’t forget to wave as you’re walking by the front windows, because he’s planted himself there, waving at you ahead of time.

When Ward takes Dylan out to clay class or for speech therapy, Dylan always insists that not only should Mommy get a kiss from Dylan, she should also get a kiss and a hug from Daddy. To prove his point, he drew this picture the other day:

Mommy and Daddy Kissing

Dylan’s Day Yesterday

Yesterday, Dylan had a busy day. I had to stay home, of course, since I’ve got these deadlines (you know, the ones that have been coming out of my ears all week?), so it was just Dylan and Daddy. First they went to speech therapy:

Mommy: How did speech therapy go?

Dylan: Good.

Mommy: Did you have fun?

Dylan: Yes. (with a very nice emphasis on the “sss”, I might add)

Mommy: What did you do?

Dylan: I don’t remember.

(Yes, I think he’s trying on teenager-ese for the fun of it.)

But then after speech therapy, he did something fun – he and Daddy only had an hour before his chess lesson, so: “Mommy, I went to Ol’ McDonald’s and I got this!” (flourishing a little metal car which was part of his Happy Meal. Of which, Daddy reports, he ate the fries and nothing else.)

We had a more eloquent report about the chess lesson (which we’re doing with a group of homeschoolers and a private instructor – Dylan’s the youngest there, and we were a little bit hesitant at first because it’s a two-hour class. But it worked and he loves it.)

Mommy: Did you have a good time at chess?

Dylan: It was deee-lightful.

Dylan Draws: People!

He had a lot of fun this morning – he’s discovered that he likes drawing people! Note: he supplied all the titles.

Girl sleeping on a pillow.

Boy with a whistle.

Girl with hair.

Gel pens from Costco

And next thing you know, we were working away together on this picture which we’ve decided would be our Big Draw picture for the day. We worked in a humungous sketch book that we like to draw in together. Mommy drew the freight cars and occupants, and the big top tent, and decorated the back engine. Dylan drew the front and back steam engines, decorated the front steam engine and colored all of the freight cars.

Circus train. Gel pens.

Can you tell we had a great time drawing this picture together?

Tonight I finally got around to doing something I’ve been procrastinating for a while – and it’s left me wondering, why on earth was I procrastinating?

We buy a lot of cookbooks around here. My husband loves to cook, but while he enjoys reading cookbooks and picking out things to try, he prefers to cook recipes that I’ve chosen – it’s always better to cook something that you know someone wants to eat. So one of my jobs when it comes to the kitchen is sitting down with our latest cookbooks and going through each one, writing down recipe names and page numbers for every dish that catches my fancy.

I do this in a Cambridge steno pad. I use a Zebra pen that glides over the pages. All in all, it’s a very enjoyable experience. Yet it’s something I seem to always put off. And then one day we both notice we’re eating dishes prepared from the same cookbook – because Ward’s cooked so many of the ones I’ve chosen, there’s not much left to select!

Our recipe steno pad

So tonight I went through two of our latest cookbooks, and have a third ready to dive into. It’s been a very enjoyable evening so far.

I also uploaded the second batch of pictures from our Thanksgiving weekend last weekend, taken during our Thanksgiving dinner at my sister’s place. I still have a third batch of pictures to upload into a blog post (did I mention I am a procrastinator, and a masterful one at that, too?)

Dylan and Ward have been making gingerbread cookies, too. We recently added a KitchenAid Pro mixer to our arsenal of kitchen gadgets, so gingerbread was one of the first things Ward tested out. We also bought a new cookie cutter – in the shape of a train, of course! Here are two of the cookies, decorated by Dylan for Oma and Happy (Ward’s mom and dad):

Train cookies.

They left with only one, though, since Dylan really really wanted to share one with them

Today’s Big Draw Drawings

Dylan drew a boxcar today – not an unusual choice of subject, but he tried something today that he’s never done before. He drew the boxcar using color only – rather than drawing the shape of the boxcar first and then coloring it in, he approached it like a painter, laying down swathes of color.

Boxcar. Crayola markers.

And me? A shoe! (I love shoes.)

Shoe. Pen.

As you can probably see, the detail is simply amazing. I didn’t snap a shot of Toronto’s downtown this time around – that’s one of my favorite scenes. My other favorite scene is the city street scene (it’s the first picture above).

We also took a few movies, including one during the “nighttime”, but luckily for all I haven’t figured out how to upload the .wav file and format it for a blog post. Yet.

The Big Draw

Dylan is still very much on track with the Big Draw, Mommy not so much. I’ve been feeling the need to just stretch out and read, more or less “me” time, in between deadlines and family stuff, so I’ve been honoring that. I’ve managed to polish off a lot of books on my TBR pile, which is nice – but haven’t really been doing much else, including drawing.

Ever since we went to Aberfoyle Junction on Sunday, Dylan’s been drawing lots of trains. Here are his two drawings, one for yesterday and one for today.

Colorful steam engine. Crayola markers.

Colorful freight cars. Crayola markers.

Three Beautiful Things

It’s been a while since I’ve written up Three Beautiful Things for the day, and it feels like the perfect way to end this post tonight.

1. Hayley and Heather working away on their schoolwork, so companionably, such wonderful friends.

2. Memories of the gorgeous focaccia (Rosemary and Sea Salt) that Ward made last night and we finished off tonight – beautifully flavored, wonderfully chewy and soft at the same time.

3. Finishing the day with a glass of wine and a good book.

Of course, with all the running around, we didn’t get much drawing done. But when he came home, Dylan decided to use the Paint program on his computer. He’s been doing a bit of drawing in Paint lately, so we saved today’s for his Big Draw post:

Train. Paint program.

I didn’t draw today, but I’ve got a great substitute! My daughter Hayley finished the video she just made with her friend Heather, and they’ve uploaded it to YouTube. It’s hilarious, especially during the fight scenes. She’s the one with the dark hair. And if you look very carefully, about midway through the video, you’ll see Dylan riding his tricycle on the back deck. He saw them filming outside and had to get out there and be a part of the action

It’s called “The Ultimate Battle for Pepsi”:

It’s great to have creative kids. They’re hardly ever bored!