I am amazed by the wonderful art kits and projects that are availble these days for children. We got our grandson something called Paint By Stickers. You can see one of his creations in the header photo. We also got him this amazing art kit:
It has water color pencils, pastels, charcoal pecils for sketching, and things I can’t even identify. He loves doing art projects. He set straight to work with it after opening it on Wednesday morning.
I sure can’t say the same for me either now or when I was a child. I despised art class and art projects in school. Sewing and embroidery made sense and I enjoyed them. I still do, but drawing? Forget it. My fingers don’t do what my brain tells it to do when I have an art implement in my hand. My hand writing is and always has been awful. I think it has something to do with a lack of patience.
One of my favorite college classes was Art History. I love other people’s art and learning about artists and their lives. .Just don’t make me create anything. I will leave that to the proficient.
What art projects did you like or not like as a child? How about now? Who are your favorite artists?
Trail Baboon 
Rise and Shine, Baboons,
As a kid any exposure to art came from school. There was one art teacher for the entire district, so those classes were rare, but they did exist. Our art teacher was Mrs. Grau, who was herself quite an expert illustrator, was so kind. I just remember being fascinated with her. In 7th or 8th grade she gave us a project of painting on a cedar shingle. My mother kept my painting which I found in 2009 when I closed her house and moved her to my brother’s house. It is of a tattered old man (I think it was Heidi’s–the book Heidi– grandfather. I loved that book). That semester of Junior High art was my entire art career until my adulthood when I could engage in what activities I chose. I was not allowed to take art classes in high school or college because “Art has nothing to do with life or making a living.” Oh, my.
I love visual art. Seeing Michaelanglelo’s David in Florence, Italy is a lifetime high point. If I have an opportunity to see it again, I will do so. I sat there with it on a quiet day, just looking and feeling it. I saw the Mona Lisa, too, but the Louvre that day was visited many Junior HIgh aged kids. Above Mona lIsa was a nude painting by the famous “I don’t remember” so giggling boys, were crowding around it, but it is a fascinating painting. I could go on and on,but enough for now.
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JacAnon who yearns for a post-post edit button.
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steve used to type his stuffin word then hit the go button after hed edited it. i often think of that as i put my tangled typing on the trail
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Me too. But all I do is think about it.
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i have always loved art. i have a friend in montana who starts with fingerpaints as a backgroubd then adds the subjects
i love that. perks reece is his name if you want to check him out.
i am a drawing painting sculpture guy primarily. i like acrylics and a canvas but watercolor intrigues me. ink and a piece of paper is fun, i love pastels and the gray to black chalk/pastels. clay is a great beginning to sculpture but bronze is where i woyld like to get to. i have been thinking about concrete for a while ala henri moore
kline pollack dekooning hans hoffman and the abstract expressionists is my favorire group but the impressionists cant be beat there dome excellent wooden sculpture in the mia. the sculptture garden and its satalite installations are marvelous oil takes my breath away bit i font have the patience but maybe now that i can touch something snd come back 3 days oe 3 weeks later to put the next layer on …
been thinking woodworking. i love freeform wood
jewelry making was enjoyable.
i used to buy those art kits every christmas and wed burn through all the markers and need the new kit by next year. a pile of paper and that little satchel are all one needs.
my youngest (23) came home forchristmas with her 120 marker pack and a couple color the pattern books and it apoears to be wonderful therapy for her. she loves it.
my mom was an art teacher and knew all the art history stuff, cousin dan is so knowledgeable about all the stories behind the stories that i love going to the museum with him and ivget him talking and just ask one question after another. my bass player is a hot shit artist today and knows all the current folks and is a well of information about the art world
joe havel is his name. he just moved to france as he retired from houston art acadamia and thought hed give life in a castle a go. i bet ill catch up with hom over there and get the run through on the art scene in that part of the world.
i disapear when im doig art
i melt into the media
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Ah, “my mom was an art teacher” says a lot…
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I never thought I was any good at art – put all my energy into music (my mom was a music teacher)… I did learn
But when on my month-long train trip in 1998 (https://trailbaboon.com/2016/02/20/north-american-rail-pass/), I started drawing a bit. I had bought a set of colored pencils when in the Bay Area, and shipped most of my books home. There was ample time for drawing at times when our train was stopped to allow a freight train to pass. (Freight owns the rails in a lot of places.) I have a journal full of admittedly primitive drawings, but it’s fun to remember those scenes.
I love Vincent Van Gogh, think he’s my favorite. Will think of others.
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I love Vermeer.
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vermeer was unknown to me for a long time
like to know the story woulldnt you
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Woops (yes about wishing for post-post editing ) – meant to say I did learn some embroidery from a young woman in the Trailer Court… did me well in the early 70s when we were embroidering the hems of our jeans.
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Our hippie jeans were kind of weird works of art all on their own.
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When I was in high school, it was all the rage to slit the jeans open from the knee to the ankle and add colorful fabric panels. My mom let me to this to a couple of pairs but she insisted that I leave one pair intact. Mothers!
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We did that, too…
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My favorite artists are con artists. Janiece Sypult is my current nominee. Here’s an email I have just received from her:
“It’s Janiece Sypult with the Student Loan Debt Department. This is regarding your case number 25955. We tried to contact you at your home and did not hear back. Your StudentLoans have been flagged as possibly eligible for forgiveness under the new 2024 guidelines. Your file will remain open in my system for only one more day. Please give me a call at: (877)‑470‑7997 ,We can take your call between the hours of 8am-5pm(PST) Monday-Friday. Thank you, - Janiece Sypult”
The Student Loan Debt Department? Really? I think I’ll just assume they made a mistake.
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Oh, and there are so many of them – the con artists… Wish I could find my favorite, where they say how they’ve been tracking all the porn we’ve been watching, and they’re going to basically blackmail us about it somehow…
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Porn? All we get is car warranty offers.
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Renee, that is amazing artwork by your grandson. I wouldn’t be able to produce something that beautiful now, let alone when I was six. Algebra was never my strong suit, he probably has me beat there, too.
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WP is at it again. PJ
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Tomorrow he and I are making macarons. We will see what kind of pastry artists we can be.
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Then there are booze artists. They can’t be trusted, either.
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I’m not sure what a booze artist is or does. I won’t spend too much time pondering it either.
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An old fashioned name for a heavy drinker
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This morning the plumbers came to replace son’s busted down garbage disposal. They are true artists, too.
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That art kit is amazing, Renee!
My dad was an art teacher (he draws and sells cartoons in his retirement), and his siblings were all artistic. I inherited their interest in art, but not their talent. We always had plenty of crayons, pens, pencils, paper, paints, clay, etc. when I was growing up. I drew a lot and liked to try to copy the beautiful illustrations in our World Book encyclopedia entry on “dress.” It had fashions/costumes from throughout history and all over the world. For all my practice, I was never any good at drawing, painting, or sculpting. In my teens I discovered calligraphy and became pretty good at it. I still have all my pens, plus a lot of colored pencils and pastels in case I want to try drawing again.
These days I channel my creativity mostly through cooking and baking. I used to do a lot of embroidery, but haven’t done it in years. It would be nice to start again.
I love art museums and have been to several on my travels. The Impressionists are favorites, and I’ve been to the d’Orsay in Paris which has a big collection of their work. One of my favorite works is closer to home: Seurat’s “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la Grande Jatte,” which is in Chicago. I could look at it for hours.
JB
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I’ve been very few places, but we did get to Paris in 2015, and I loved the D’Orsay; I particularly remember some paintings by Millet, who painted peasant scenes… besides The Gleaners and The Angelus.
I also like Mary Cassatt a lot.
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I’m sure I’ve whined about this before but as a kid I didn’t do any artistic stuff (unless you want to count piano). I was the “smart one” and my sister Sally was the “artistic one”. So she got all kinds of art classes and Saturday sessions at one point. And paints/markers etc. None of that for me.
These days I’m the artistic one… when Sally got married, she decided she didn’t want to do artsy-fartsy stuff anymore. I don’t remember if she actually said she wanted to put all her energy into her husband and eventual kids, but that was the idea I got.
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I enjoyed a lot of art class projects in high school. Silk screen, wood cuts, linoleum cuts, sketching. These days I like mosaic and collage, and just putting odd stuff together with the forlorn hope that it looks like something.
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It seems that art can be many things – not just drawing, sketching, or painting. I’m glad about that because I can’t draw or paint to save my life. I don’t think all art is visual.
I’ve always loved to play and sing, but I’m not the greatest musician in the world either.
Words are art too. Poetry and prose can create such strong emotions for me. The lyrics of songs are often staggeringly beautiful, even if they’ve been fitted together to fit the meter of the song. When combined with music, or written in a poem, words become art.
I like fiber arts now. It’s amazing what people can do with fiber and other mixed media.
Mosaics blow my mind. I could stare at some mosaics for hours.
I love color, design, and balance. I think it’s possible to make your home a work of art. Some people make their life a work of art, and they’re not even trying!
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