We Met C3PO!

At the Smithsonian Museum of American History!

Gone Fishin'

We're off in the country, doin' things boys should do in the summertime...without the parents...

All photos by Nana...via cell phone...

Art Fair!!

Our school had it's art fair today. J and I entered sculptures this year. They were really fun to make. The first thing we did was make a sketch on paper of what we wanted our sculpture to look like. I used one of my toy dogs as a model, and Josh used his stuffed giraffe. Then, we got some coat hangers from our next door neighbor's dad. He has to wear a suit to work, so he had a lot from the dry cleaner. Mom cut off the hanger part, and we straightened them out. Then we laid them down on top of our drawings and bent them into the shapes we had drawn. We had to do two of them so the sculpture would be fat.

After that, we stuck the bent coat hangers into styrofoam and used short pieces of coat hanger to attach them together. Mom mixed up the epoxy putty and put it on for us. It smelled like poop. yuck.

When that dried, we took pantyhose and stretched it over the frame. Well, first we put them on our heads, but that kind of hurt, so then we stretched it over the frame. We put the styrofoam part down in a box and poured plaster in it so it would be heavy on bottom. The plaster kind of looked like thick milk, but Mom said to not drink it.

After the plaster dried, we painted the sculptures, and then sewed on the ears. I had sewn before, but Josh hadn't. He did pretty good for a 5 year old.

Joshua won first place in his class, and I won 3rd place! Sweet! It was a fun art project. You should try it.

Peace,

Derek

Matisse!

We learned about Matisse today in art class. He was a French artist and made some really cool stuff. When he got older, he had cancer and was in a wheelchair. Then, he started making cut paper collages, so we made some in class just like he used to!





This one is mine and is a ring master in the circus. That's the tightrope at the top, and the posts that support it on the sides.

Joshua made this one. He said it is a superhero with a really tall hat, and his superpuppy, protecting the earth from a giant meteor.

He also made this one - on the right are the Smoky Mountains, the brown part is England, the yellow sticky-down part is Italy and the yellow part on the left is Hawaii. That's Mama, with a blue hat, between England and the Smoky Mountains. That's the sky at the top...

And I drew this one. It's Mama. That's the atmosphere swirling around her feet. She's like that. She's 38, but don't tell anyone I told you.

Peace,

Derek

Our First Art Class

We had our first art class today. Ms. Sandy told us all about Wassily Kandinsky and his artwork. He painted alot of abstracts based on music, so we did some paintings while we listened to music. We got to use pastels, pencils and markers. It was a lot of fun, and I was really glad that Joshua didn't freak out. He was pretty nervous, but then he started painting, and he wasn't nervous anymore. We're looking forward to next week and what we'll learn then!

The first two are by me (Derek) - I used scissors on the second one. Cool.
These are by Joshua.

Rock On

We got new rocking hairstyles...the time for the ultimate rock band is almost here...

Art Adventures

Mom took us out on an art field trip today. She started out in a good mood, but then got really cranky about the whole thing. You can read about it here. Anyway - we had a great time and got to sketch in the museum and continued when we got back home. Here's what we came up with...

I sketched a really cool glass trophy skull. At first I thought it was real, but then Mom told me someone blew glass through a tube and made it. I saw a guy blow a glass mug at Stone Mountain. Totally wicked.
We saw some really big paintings by this guy, Hunt Slonem. I mean, they were humungous. They had a lot of macaws on them, and I like macaws, so I drew one.

Joshua liked the macaws, too, but he thought the composition needed something, so he added a big tree with lots of limbs to his sketch. He's just like that.

When we got home, he drew this picture of a pig queen. He makes his "p" backwards because he's just a little kid. And it only says "Mom" on it because it is for Mom...she's not a pig queen. :-D

We also signed up for art classes at a local art center that will start in March. We're pretty excited about it. Mom says we may learn how to paint so we can be artists when we grow up. Or firemen...or secret agents...or clowns.

Peace,

Derek