Vanessa leaves random art everywhere. Her desk drawers are full of her works. Sometimes she wakes in the morning and begins drawing at her desk. She's quite expressive with all of her work. Her Hello Kitty is pretty special to her.
I just finally took this down from the kitchen. She made this nine months to a year ago. I loved it extra much. It was random and she whipped it out in under a couple of minutes. Do you know what it is? That's right, a tomato bird. You guessed that, right?! :-)
Zane always wants to try what Vanessa does. See Baby Moses in the basket in the water? He's the black blob. :-) He can tell you all about it.
And another favorite -- using oil pastels. One of Vanessa's many self portraits. She's wearing her hand-me-down Rock Star hat, her hand-me-down dress with leggings, and her battered Snow White princess shoes.
Vanessa also has a fine way for describing art and artists, like she has been able to do with music and composers. (She was quite impressive with her sharing of the The Nutcracker and Peter Tchaikovsky based on how her music teacher presented the studies to her.) A few months ago they studied the Mona Lisa. What impressed Vanessa most was how the Mona Lisa was stolen. She created a picture to show what she would do with the Mona Lisa if it was given to her to keep safe. Vanessa drew a staircase with her walking up the stairs, to resemble the stairs in our house, and she hung the Mona Lisa at the top of the stairs. She told me that it would be safe there because we keep our very old family pictures there and they are safe.
Last month they studied Vincent Van Gogh. Vanessa doesn't like me to leave off the Vincent, although she accepted the explanation that when you say something is a Van Gogh, people know it's Vincent's. Anyway, she was very impressed by him and his art. (Which is cool because he's always been one of my faves, perhaps because I have a soft spot in my heart for the troubles he faced.) She says that Starry Night is her favorite. We scrolled through many of his paintings and she claimed she also liked the Sunflowers and Irises as much as I do. Vanessa is a problem solver and wants to fix people's hurts. Her comment when describing what she learned about Van Gogh was "Van Gogh was really happy when he painted. He should have painted more instead of cutting off his ear and then shooting himself in the gut to die two days later." Unfortunately we had to talk about why someone might go to such measures.
Interestingly her learning about the self-inflicted harm Vincent Van Gogh did to himself coincided with her learning more about Martin Luther King. We discussed his dream and how MLK helped to bring equal rights to many. A few hours later on our way home from the library, Vanessa was telling me about a nightmare she had that involved her Furby. She went on to tell me how she changed the nightmare and continued to explain that her dream was not like MLK's dream. Then she said "You know a white man shot and killed MLK. His name was James Early Ray. He didn't like Martin Luther King." We went on to talk about how she was right but I wanted to make it clear that it wasn't only because he didn't like him. We talked about people who fear change and feel threatened because they think their way is the only way. She clarified "Well, and we shouldn't kill people. Only God should decide when someone should die."
Last month they studied Vincent Van Gogh. Vanessa doesn't like me to leave off the Vincent, although she accepted the explanation that when you say something is a Van Gogh, people know it's Vincent's. Anyway, she was very impressed by him and his art. (Which is cool because he's always been one of my faves, perhaps because I have a soft spot in my heart for the troubles he faced.) She says that Starry Night is her favorite. We scrolled through many of his paintings and she claimed she also liked the Sunflowers and Irises as much as I do. Vanessa is a problem solver and wants to fix people's hurts. Her comment when describing what she learned about Van Gogh was "Van Gogh was really happy when he painted. He should have painted more instead of cutting off his ear and then shooting himself in the gut to die two days later." Unfortunately we had to talk about why someone might go to such measures.
Interestingly her learning about the self-inflicted harm Vincent Van Gogh did to himself coincided with her learning more about Martin Luther King. We discussed his dream and how MLK helped to bring equal rights to many. A few hours later on our way home from the library, Vanessa was telling me about a nightmare she had that involved her Furby. She went on to tell me how she changed the nightmare and continued to explain that her dream was not like MLK's dream. Then she said "You know a white man shot and killed MLK. His name was James Early Ray. He didn't like Martin Luther King." We went on to talk about how she was right but I wanted to make it clear that it wasn't only because he didn't like him. We talked about people who fear change and feel threatened because they think their way is the only way. She clarified "Well, and we shouldn't kill people. Only God should decide when someone should die."
