In Her Father's Footsteps

You may not believe that I was able to hold off this long, but y'all, I have signed my baby up for her first craft swap.

Well, really it's an art swap. House on Hill Road and Blair Peter are moderating what is possibly the FIRST Artist Trading Card children's swap. I am a super-big fan of Artist Trading Cards, but I've never joined in on any ATC swaps on my own behalf because, well... I'm not an artist. But mediating my baby's first forays into official artdom is actually making the concept seem a lot less intimidating and a lot more accessible, so I likely might jump in sometime soon.

And you know how I love arts and crafts materials, so one of the coolest benefits of Will doing this swap is that I'm being introduced to all those official kinds of artist's paper--watercolor paper, sketch paper, Bristol board, vellum, canvas, etc. You absolutely have to use a professional-quality artist's paper for an ATC; you can cut them down from larger pieces, but for this first time I just bought a few packs of each in the exactly correct size for an ATC (2.5"x3.5", if you're curious, or the size of a baseball card).

So this morning I explained the concept to the kiddos and off we went with our watercolors and our Strathmore watercolor paper:

And you know, it IS more fun to paint with watercolors on professional-quality watercolor paper--the way the colors flow, and they look so pretty, and the paper dries all nicely. The girls enjoyed painting with watercolors more this morning than they probably ever have previously, and I, too, was quite pleased with my efforts. I'd noticed that the Strathmore papers are on sale at Michael's this week, so this afternoon after school we went by and bought a pack of watercolor paper in every size--big, bigger, and poster-huge! I'm looking forward to a family-wide collaboration on that huge paper.

We're going to study art for a while around here, I think. I requested a ton of art books--kids' and adult, from the library, as well as
(which I'm pretty excited about), and I'm looking forward to exploring more hands-on art with the girls.

We can also incorporate some field trips--the IU Art Museum is terrific, and, so, of course, is the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

Of course, Willow's last visit to an art museum went less than well. But she's what, six months older now? Whereas four-year-olds may shriek and act possessed the second they so much as enter the foyer of a world-class art museum, four-and-a-half-year-olds tend to appreciate their educational opportunities so much more, don't you find?

Don't you?