First things first, the poll results.

Number of people participated – 141 (People living in India = 43.9% + People living outside India = 56.02%)

99.29% know at least one Indian language. 30.49% know at least two Indian languages. 24.11% know at least three Indian languages.

89.36% have at least one language common with their spouse. Only 4.96% do not have a common Indian language with their spouse. Some people did not explicitly specify the languages the spouse knows and there were some unmarried people. That comes to roughly 5.6%

92.19% of us feel strongly(7 or higher on a scale of 1 – 10, one being the lowest and 10 being the highest) that our children must know at least one Indian language. 3.5% rated it at 5 and 0.7% rated it at 1.

In spite of 89.36% of us having at least one common language with our spouse, and 92.19% feeling strongly about their child speaking an Indian language, only 29.07% of us speak to our children in an Indian language.

I am not specifying the % of children who can talk and understand and Indian language because some were very young children and the number would not be a true representation.

Couple of personal revelations:

After this poll, I have a new gained respect to the standardized polls with restrictive choices. I always thought the generic polls are too foo-foo, but hey one learns something new every day-huh?!

Also I underestimated the power of the blogging mommy network, I did not expect such good turn out. I spent a great deal of time parsing and organizing the data.

I would like to thank you all for your time and your valuable inputs.

Keep tuned for more on Language Development in young children.

A very old post I wrote on Language Development here.

Technorati Tags: death of a language death of a culture, how english is affecting the home language, how to encourage children to talk in home langauge, Indian language at home, is mother tongue just the mother's tongue?, langugae development in young children, second language development in children

To play Feb’s “Guess the book” see the side bar.

FOLK ART.

The very first time I heard this term was in 2003. I was experimenting with various mediums. I took my Tanjore painting of Krishna and Balram to my oil painting class, people were impressed by the richness and details. That’s when some one popped the question, “Is this folk art? Some thing typical of India?”. Though I had no clue about the exact definition of folk art, some thing prevented me from saying yes. I thought hard and answered, “Well, it is more like traditional art, practiced in the southern part India.” Though I had answered the question, I had no idea about the difference between folk art and traditional art and why I chose the later term to describe my painting. But something was planted in my mind regarding the different art forms of Indian art. Ever since, people who have know me would have heard me say, “I am looking for books on Indian art that are intrinsically India.”

For the past couple of months I have been looking at Tara’s website, which by the way is my new pass time, and I must say that I am mesmerized. All their books have a unique theme and the vibrant book covers tempted me to hit the ‘Add To Cart’ button. It was at this point I happened to clean one of book storage bins and I almost squealed in delight. There, it was lying at the bottom of the bin was Tara’s BEASTS OF INDIA! I must have bought it in my recent India trip and must have completely forgotten about it or the book fairy must have paid me a visit. (In case if it is the book fairy, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, thanks for this book and all that, but you really must look at the complete list. I so want to own DO! Also by Tara.)

The book has been reviewed for Saffron Tree. Find the review here.

How can we let this inspiration pass. So we combined it with the festive atmosphere of the Lunar New Year and Satish’s review of Everyone Knows What A Dragon Looks Like and we made our own paper dragons.

First what we talked about how every one imagined their dragons. Prominent features like big eyes, horns, bushy eye brows, sharp teeth, fire were thrown out. We all unanimously agreed that the dragon is scary and the color red must feature in the dragon.

We picked one style that inspired us to create our dragon. Chula wanted to combine Patachitra and Gond. The little one started with Madhubani and soon changed her mind. I was deeply attracted to Gond the minute I set my eyes on one. So I stayed with Gond till the end.

The hand with its fingers spread out can be a starter for many art forms. For the most part it eliminates the, “I can’t do it like you amma, can you do it for me?”. We traced our hands, leaving out the the thumb. We converted the index finger and the pinkie in to ears. The other two fingers became the horns.

It took me a good two hours to finish my dragon and I must say that it was deeply therapeutic. The little ones lost interest after the first fifteen minutes and they moved away. But they saw how much I was enjoying myself and came back to ‘help’. For the last 45 minutes they sat next to me, one holding the pens and one making sure that I did not miss the pattern. The critique from the little ones, “Well, he kind of looks friendly amma. Not scary at all. May be he is a she.” I did start out with the mental picture of the Yali, but the end result was very different.

I know that the books touched the girls because when I stepped out I saw that they had created out of side walk chalk a Warli inspired cow

With that I leave you with some pictures.

Technorati Tags: chinese new year, community art India, drgon making at home, folk art India, India art, Tara publishing, traditional art India, tribal art India

Out of the blue, the old Shaker song Chula and Mieja sing in the school during circle time comes in to my head.

‘Tis the gift to be simple,
’tis the gift to be free,
’tis the gift to come down to
where we ought to be,
and when we find ourselves in the place just right,
’twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained
to bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed,
to turn, turn, will be our delight
till by turning, turning we come round right.

It IS a gift to be simple huh?! So coming down to where we are meant to be is a gift too? How absolutely right that it has to happen at the right time!?! Otherwise we wouldn’t have the capacity to recognize this gift. But how do we differentiate between coming down to a simpler level and lowering our aspirations and generally aiming for much lower than our capacity? In terms of life style, I understand the simpler we get, the harder it is at first. In today’s world simple is complicated. But in terms of aspirations, can doing our best and living a simple life co-exist? Are they mutually exclusive? At times is ‘simple’ an euphemism for ‘lazy’? By asking for both am I asking for too much? Or, just like lifestyle choices, simple aspirations are the most complicated? Are opposites the same?

In Eat, Pray, Love Elizabeth Gilbert talks about this balance. Wait a minute, I have read about something along these lines in the Swami Nithyananda newsletter. I have to put these down some where, but I realize that I am in the shower. So I quickly jot down hurried notes in the glass shower door that is misted with the vapor. Now the challenge is to get out and record the thought in something more definitive like a paper/voice memo in my phone or even better on the computer. The vapor notes are already beginning to streak with water.

But even before I open the bathroom door, Chula and Mieja come rolling in to the bathroom. Yes, they are rolling, fighting about something. Everything in my mind goes blank, there is a shift of priorities, I disentangle the children, help them resolve the conflict, realize that I have ten more minutes to get ready and leave home for work. Then it is run, run, run all day long and by 2.00PM there is some down time and I realize that the idea on the shower door has long vaporized.

It is not just one instance. For the past six years, everything, I realize, is a series of broken thoughts, interrupted processes. I have been on my feet constantly, improvising, abandoning one thing to pick up something that escalates, compromising, and postponing.

I am a visual person. The one thing that helps me is to see or to visualize with elaborate mental images. To remember numbers, I used to close my eyes and visualize myself writing the number on a paper and in the process come up with a code or a clue that will etch the number in my memory for E.V.E.R. Now I hear things and even before it reaches the brain I turn to catch the next thing and it is gone. My brain is like a sieve. I have become absolutely incapable of holding numbers.

When the uplink is happening, when the connection between the synapses is in process, to be jerked away from it and to be posed with something absolutely new that has to be dealt with….. Sometimes I can almost feel the pain from the synaptic connection that is ripped.

I badly needed time for myself and hence came up with the whole 4.00AM getting up thingy. For a while it was peaceful. At times, I would have nothing to do. I would sit with my steaming cup of ginger chai, with my devotional songs mp3 in the background and stare out through the dark window. There is nothing like hearing MS’s voice at 4.00AM. There is something deeply spiritual at that time of the day and in that voice. It was absolutely refreshing. Then one kid realized that I get up early and if they get up at more or less the same time, they can get my attention. So one started getting up to cuddle with me. Then slowly both started getting up at 4.00AM. I realize that they grow up and pretty soon they may not need me on this level. But, come on kids, be reasonable.

I truly believe that every object has a place. Even in the house, everything has a place. I wouldn’t say that everything is 100% organized, but for example, washed clothes go on in to the guest bedroom and wait to be folded. Even if it takes a while to be folded, even if it is in a pile for a week, that pile has to stay in a certain place. There is a place for newspaper. There is a place for mail. The mail mixes with the newspaper or if it is lying in the middle of the house, I just cannot think. I cannot take misplaced clutter. Oxymoronic huh? But, hey, that is me. Now, I have clutter in my brain and I don’t have time to organize the clutter. I can almost feel the corrosive clutter sitting in my head ever so slowly eroding my brain.

So with this in mind, I am trying to do some changes at home.

When kid 1 or kid 2 comes to me with another end of the world problem, I ask them if it is something they can solve by themselves. And the answer I get is always NO, no exceptions So, unless there is physical pain, I give them a choice, ‘You can either think and try solving it or wait till I am done with whatever I am doing.’ Works sometimes.

I also ask them, considering that it is going to take me a while to get to them, if they can think of another adult who can help them. I have stopped the blunt, ‘Go ask appa’ kind of blunt redirection. Because the kid1/kid2 when she approaches me, has already made a visual image of me helping her. (Apple does not fall far from the tree. Arrrrh.) So if I abruptly rewrite it, it leads to more drama. So I have to let her think and let her rewrite her own visual.

If I am starting something that needs to be done in one shot, no matter how trivial it is like transferring idli batter from grinder to vessel (The husband begs to differ. Under no circumstances he refuses to think of idli batter as trivial), I give them advance warning. I tell the kids that I am doing something and that I do not want to be pulled away from it till I am done. So they better behave themselves and not kill each other in that five minutes I am occupied.

Blackmail works wonders. I tell them, if there is a problem/conflict, then it means that they need to think about ways to solve/resolve it. Then I look straight at them and say, “This is what your teachers tell you in the peace lessons right? Can I call R/J and ask her how she feels about it?” They just scram when I mention teachers.

Thanks to a friend, I tried some empathy lessons last weekend. It was hilarious and I enjoyed doing it. Chula was sitting and watching her usual weekend end quota of TV. I sat next to her and pestered her to cuddle with me, get me some water from the kitchen, asked her if she can play with me, fell on her and in the process hiding the TV from the line of sight, every three seconds I whined ‘Are you done?’, when she will be done watching ‘her TV ‘ and if it is time for ‘my TV’ and demanded attention. She was just about to throw up her hands up in the air in frustration and I told her this is E.X.A.C.T.L.Y how I feel. Will work with Chula, but Mieja would probably think that this is how things are done, so I can’t do this with her.

Last but not the least, sharing. I am sick of being passed half eaten fruit, children usurping interesting food from my plate, once tasted and rejected cookies, cold soggy dosas, lukewarm idlis, left over cake with cream licked off, deflated pooris and the likes of it. Last Sun we were eating in a restaurant and I swatted hands away from the appalam that came with my thali lunch. I AM NOT SHARING MY APPALAM ANY MORE. So, deal with it kids.

Technorati Tags: finidng my balance, how to lead a simpe life, how to teach kids to solve conflicts, my share of pie

Part 1 of many here.

Part 2 of many here.

Part 3 of many here.

Part 4 of many here.

Part 5 of many here.

Books like Pranav’s Picture, Harold And The Purple Crayon, Dot and Ish are very helpful for the parents to understand the creative process. I have reviewed these books for Saffron Tree. I reviewed, also for Saffron Tree, a few books that have open ended art exploration ideas.

You can find some awesome projects in Sheela’s blog. Some how god gave her 44 hours in a day and an extra truckload of patience. I especially loved this and this. Imagine the fun you and your child will have doing this.

If you are planning on introducing art history or working with your child to recognize elements of a painting books, don’t fear. There is a cartload of books available. My personal favorite is Lucy Micklethwait and Usborne’s The Children’s Book Of Art.

Books like Can You Find It, When Pigasso Met Mootisse, Oooh! Picasso and Look!Look!Look! are very effective when you can follow it up with a trip to a museum.

One thing I am constantly struggling to achieve is a definitive art space for the kids at home. Also what are the basic supplies one needs? If you have the same questions, don’t fear the Camp Creek Blog is here. Check out the right hand side links for ART LESSONS and also posts under CARD CATALOG ->in the studio. That was the basic I started off with.

That pretty much summarizes all that is in my mind. Now I am throwing the subject of art appreciation open to you all.

On the subject of appreciating your child’s art, what do you do when you child shows you her art? Do you say good job? Do you define what she has created? Do you say, “Oh is that a butterfly?” In that case are you prepared to meet an answer like, “No it is you amma. I drew you.” Do you ask her to define her own work and in the process tell her that what she creates must be something that fits in to definition? What do you all do as parents?

Another thing I am trying to get a grasp of is how to store all the art they churn out. On an average day there are atleast 5 papers per child. On top of this there is their usual academic work from school. What do you all do?

So long folks. Have a great day.

Technorati Tags: art appreciation, art boks for children, art exploration, art history, how to appreciate your child's art, how to introduce art to children, how to store your children art, what to read before a museum trip

Part 1 of many here.

Part two of many here.

Part three of many here.

Part four of many here.

Okay the survey results are as follows:

92% played with Fevicol and loved it.
44% loved coloring and erasing with markers, 20% yes on only coloring, 20% yes only on erasing.
92% loved pencils and sharpeners.
Candle wax seems to be the biggest hit with 96% love.
57% did not like ripping newspaper. What a bummer?! I strongly recommend you guys try it. It is such a cathartic release.
50% love swirling paint, 28% like it, 14% are okay with it.
72% make rainbows in the shower and I am happy to announce that we all believe in showers and soap.
57% rolled chapathi dough and then ate it. 38% played and discarded the dough.
62% did not scribble in the house, no experimentation and wondered about my mother’s reaction.

My grand conclusion based on the poll results…….

As children, most of us just played for the sake of playing, without bothering about what we produced at the end of it. These are the found memories that we carry with us. These are the memories that we might have forgotten, but when kindled, put a smile on our face. This is process orientation. This is what your young child is doing. Just doing something and taking pleasure at that moment without a bother about the past, future, accolades, recognition, praise and the mess. Soon they are going to grow up and slowly get in to the product oriented mode. For now, just let them be.

This, my dear peeps, is the ulterior motive behind the survey.

Give them the art materials. Give them the space. Give them the freedom. Stand back. Let go. Let them play. Let them discover, understand and love their material. If you feel like they have to create something meaningful to an adult, get in touch with your Fevicol days. Set limits. Like for example, paint only on designated area. Because, not many of us have studio work space. So, parents need to set limits to protect the walls, furniture and carpet. If it is their first time with paint or messy material sit with them to make sure that they understand their limits. Children and mess, many a times it is not intentional, they just cannot help themselves. Even better, sit with them and participate without taking over or interfering. It provides the children with a good model and you get to realize how much fun the whole process is.

The first six years of their life, children learn their world and express their thoughts through art. So it is essential that parents understand that the process is ‘learning about the world and communicating through art’ which later, around age 7+, becomes ‘art through learning and communication’. You cannot ‘formally teach’ a three-year-old-child to make art, but you can show them the different ways to explore.

When it comes to tips, techniques and pointers, there are overwhelmingly large number of resources. But when I look for open ended art exploration for the preschool age, I carefully avoid projects that have a finished product to show for. But, hey, it is just me. Given my personality, I have to consciously stop myself from controlling what the children do. In my opinion, when we follow some one else’s instruction and strive towards a finished product, it is craft. Not that craft is any lesser, but it is some one else’s baby, not mine.

Coming up next: List of resources for open ended art and books on art appreciation.

Technorati Tags: art exploration, difference between art and craft, process orientation and product orientation, survey result

Part 1 of many here.

Part two of many here.

Part three of many here.

We all would have colored, painted, made some kind of art as a kid. Many of us do it even now. So dip in to your memory bank or your current experiences and answer some questions.

There are just 10 questions. and you can choose to be anon. So don’t be intimidated. 9 questions are about you and the last question is for me. Indulge me please. Pretty please with a cherry on top ???

You will see only one question at a time. I have provided some answers. For folks who want to tell more there is a text area. After you answer click on next. Please make sure you answer all 10 questions.

Survey will be open till Jan 18, 4.00PM PST.

Get…Set…Go

Technorati Tags: Survey

Part 1 of many here.

Part two of many here.

A child comes in to this world all geared up for survival. Think about it. Who taught this itty-bitty thing to latch on, to suck from the breast, to root, to paddle while in water, and imitate walking? All this within minutes after birth? The only explanation is new born brain is wired to handle certain reflexes. Few other things the newborn brain is designed to do is to communicate, to absorb language and to bond. These are the essential tools for survival.

If one looks at language development, music development and art development in children, it follows the same pattern. Language for example, children start with receiving language before they start talking. Talking comes in a certain order. They start with cooing, progress to babbling, figure out everything has a name and hence understand symbolism, start to say single words, move on to telegraphic speech and then comes the talking.

Children view art as a form of communication, especially in the first three years. They understand the concept of communication – thinking up something and expressing it to other people. Then they understand that communication can be using words or physical body movements like pointing gesturing etc or using paper and pencil/crayon. (The beauty about art as a tool for communication is that children use it to communicate to themselves at times. They think of a visual idea and many a times putting that visual on paper clears a lot of things for them) By this time they are masters in cause and effect, otherwise they wouldn’t know that pencil causes an impression on paper. They are developing hand-eye co-ordination and fine motor skills, otherwise they cannot manipulate the pencil to make marks on paper. We are talking about a 12month – 18month old child now.

Just like talking there are stages in drawing. Once there was a nice lady called Rhoda Kellogg. For 18 years she collected one million drawing sample of children in a certain age group. She researched the scribbles and concluded that

• Children first explore the art material, euphemism for your child eating crayon or grinding pencil. Or like in our house, a person who shall not be named painting their younger sister’s freshly tonsure head with red paint. And another person who shall not be named allowing their older sister to paint her head but insisted and rolled on the floor crying that her face needs to be painted too.
• Then they scribble. Children have 20 basic scribbles. Not all children use all the 20 scribbles, but they favor certain scribbles based on their intelligence style.
• They extend their scribbles, like making X and something resembling shapes. Invariably all children draw the circle as their first enclosed space. Happy face and sun figure in most of the children’s drawings. Then they combine shapes and such. This is when they draw ‘the house’ with one triangle for roof and a rectangle/square for the bottom. Even though they live in apartments with flat roof, they draw A-line roofs in their drawings!!
• Then they repeat and repeat and repeat, till they refine their style, placement, materials and they evolve their own individual style. By this time your child is six years give or take.

Are you blown away? Did your jaws will drop? Mine did when I first read about it

If one were to debate if art is nature or nurture, I would say both. When it comes to art, there are two things there is appreciation and there is creation. An artist is a person who has the ability to appreciate what she sees, figure out what makes the maximum impact on her, break it down in her brain in to simple elements and create it using a medium. The first part, appreciating what they see and capturing the main elements of the images that make the maximum impact on them comes naturally to young children (6 and under). Plus they are process oriented. Hence my belief that children are born artists (NATURE). As they grow up, they either grow in to people who create or grow out of art. This solely depends on their experiences with and exposure to art in the first six years (NURTURE).

So, should I run and sign up my two-year-old for art classes? What is art exposure? What do parents do to encourage and inspire their children? Will keep y’all posted. Before that indulge me in this survey pliss.

Technorati Tags: is art nature or nurture, Rhoda Kellog, patterns in children’s drawings, children use art to communicate

Technorati Tags: children use art to communicate, is art nature or nurture, patterns in children's drawings, Rhoda Kellog

Part 1 of many here.

Part 2 contd…

Art is open-ended. What is beautiful or meaningful to one person makes no sense to another. Personally, I love Raja Ravi Verma. My next best would be the impressionists. I love them all, I love the concept, I love the play of colors, I love the way the artist looks at light and dark. Recently I have been introduced to pointillism and all I can say is WOW, what a vision. This is in the late 1880?! I consider this some kind of rudimentary vision which later got extrapolated to the pixel concept now used in TV monitors.

Modern/abstract art, I simply don’t understand. I have always thought, a child could make it, what is the big deal. But one of my classmates, with a masters degree in art, explained to me that it is the process, not the product. During break time, we were discussing Jackson Pollack’s abstract expressions in particular and I said, “Jack the dripper??? Come on, my three year old can do it. I can do it. Drip, spit and roll in paint. Hah!” and my classmate said, “But did you do it? Did you have the guts to exhibit your three year old’s painting? A painting is an expression of a thought or the artist’s perception/reaction to a mental image. Pollack captured it in a way that no one had done before. He deserves credit because he was the first to think about that particular expression and had the guts to back it up.” Post that conversation my attitude to modernism and abstract expression has changed from condescension to respectfully saying, ‘two thumbs up, but not my style’. Jeez, I don’t want the enormous responsibility of looking in to some one’s mind. I am not quite ready.

But modern art does have its merits, purely from my POV. I have found from experience that children are likely to be less intimidated by modern art. They find some sort of kinship with the artist. May be it gives them the same, ‘hey, I can do this’ confidence?! May be because before six years of age children are still pure and process oriented?! I was blown away once when Chula (she was 4-ish I think) drew the drawing below and explained to me, ‘This is you amma and this is you dancing. The dancing you is moving, just like the picture lines in my class room is moving.’ The picture in her classroom she was referring to is a Kandinsky.

So what is art for a young child? It is nature, it is communication. It is a basic instinct.

Part 3, if art is nature, then why aren’t we all artists? Chk here.

Technorati Tags: what is my art, preschooler art, child art, art product vs art process, is art nature or nurture, raja ravi verma, pontillism, impressionism, kandinsky, pollack, abstract expressions, what is modern art, do young children prefer modern art

Technorati Tags: abstract expressions, art product vs art process, child art, do young children prefer modern art, impressionism, is art nature or nurture, kandinsky, pollack, pontillism, preschooler art, raja ravi verma, what is modern art, what is my art

Part 1 of many.

I have always wanted to be an artist.

I most definitely have the passion and the patience for it. But the environment I grew up in was different. I was expected to read my academic books and when I got bored, I had a choice of minding my own business without bothering the adults or browse through the college level books that were crammed in my house.

After I was born my father did his M.Phil and then his Ph.D in organic chemistry. This with a full time job as chemistry professor. The man would happily skip to college to do another degree in this ripe age of 64. For heavens sake, he did his M.Ed after he finished his Ph.D because he was going in to withdrawal. Last phone call, I became aware that he enrolled for Tamil Vedham class on Sundays because he is bored and misses learning. *Rolling eyes*

All this meant that my amma had extra responsibility at home. Oh! add two of my amma’s sisters to the equation. Yes, my two chithis were staying with us and went to school. When I was born the older chithi was 15 years old and the younger one was 13. Later the older one stayed with us and did her med school and the younger one did her engineering. Plus there were the usual obligations for my amma from both her mother’s side and in-laws side. So this translated to more expenses, lesser money, even more work for amma. So unless I was drawing something on my record notebook or for my school assignments, it was highly frowned upon.

But I wouldn’t exactly call it an environment devoid of art. My amma was an expert in kolam, embroidery, basket weaving, stitching and an occasional pencil sketching. When I say kolam it is not the small and simple apartment kolams. I am talking the 4 to 5 feet diameter free hand kolams, with symmetry. May be it was because my amma has been doing all this since she was six or seven, it had already become a daily chore and may be she just wanted to get it over with and move on to the next in her agenda. Or may be because my amma being the oldest daughter, she had been the ‘teacher’ for her four siblings. Though I was her first biological child, I was her last baby, so may be she thought she had time. Plus amma comes from the belief, ‘Kan parthu kai seiyanum’ which translates to you must look at how it is done and start doing it. Both my chithis studied ALL the time, but when they did an occasional art like painting a piece of pottery or drew something, they were awesome. Perfect work, absolute symmetry, great perspective…all this without any kind of practice.

So I must say that I kind of wanted to do art. Though I had owned only a couple of sets of sketch pens, one set of water colors and a few color pencils all through my childhood, I did it in a small way I could. The pictures in my record note books were outsanding. Then there was this phase in college where I was head over heels in to making my own greeting cards. But they were mostly cutesy stuff. So I wanted some one to hold my hands to do serious art.

I took art lessons when I was 23. My first formal exposure being water colors. At the time I took the class, I don’t think it went well at all. I found it so very hard to control the medium. I could follow the demo to some extent, but observational drawing/painting and drawing from memory were Greek and Latin. Perspective left me perplexed. Then there was capturing how the light falls, depth, color mixing, technique, layering, form and movement. I would recreate at home some of the techniques such as masking, texturing, sponging but from my experiments I found I had three limitations.
-I couldn’t bring out the depth.
-I was too careful with the paint. Every time I squeezed out paint, I found something holding me back. “Got to be careful, do not waste” mantra kept ringing again and again in my head. “What is wrong with not wasting?” one might ask, I will come back to it later.
-I was always copying. I would like a painting or a photograph and would want to recreate it.

Around this time, I saw Bob Ross on TV and I was dumbfounded. He made it look like a piece of cake and I believed that acrylics were my destiny. Unfortunately it was a very short-lived experience. I needed step-by-step guiding and the teachers I had were amazing artists but poor teachers. What seemed basic to them was a giant step for me and the gap couldn’t be bridged at all. So I stopped acrylics in 12 weeks.

Oh I must mention the one stroke painting phase! Inspired by Donna Dewberry, I painted everything in the house. Flower pots, plates, lazy susan, wood storage boxes, serving trays….

Next in line was oils and I must say that I loved it. Th teacher was amazing. All along I had worked on a white canvas, layering it with dark colors. But this time the teacher started me off with a black canvas and helped me bring out the light with every step. The fact that I could finish a portrait was a big deal for me. I was able to come up with a finished product that had depth, but I still had the other two limitations.  This was around the time I was having my miscarriages and some old wife tale about heavy metals in oils and smelling turpentine fumes put a complete stop to any further development.

For a long time I had had my eyes on tanjore paintings. So I took a workshop and loved it. Again I must say that I had a wonderful teacher. I have made four tanjore paintings so far. One of which is hanging in my house and the other three are gifts. Lovely hobby, but expensive, both in terms of time and material.

Given my limitations and time restrictions I think my art experiments will be postponed for another 10 or so years. I am not giving up, because I enjoy the process of creating something even if it is a copy, but because I simply do not have the bandwidth for classes and practice. So I was clearing my art storage boxes in the garage, salvaging some stuff for the girls to use. All this got me thinking…..

What is art? How do I define MY art? How do I teach my children to find THEIR art?

Contd: Part 2 of many.

Technorati Tags: art, art for young children, art for adults, my experiments with art

Technorati Tags: art, art for adults, art for young children, my experiments with art

Cross posted here.

For previous posts in the cooking with kids mini-series:

KOOTANCHORU
THE SCIENCE BEHIND COOKING

Here are some pointers on how to cook with kids.

• When you invite your children in to the kitchen your main motive is must be inclusion and having fun. Learning will automatically flow from the conducive environment you are creating. If you start with, “I am going to TEACH this child geometry through toast making”, you will end up frustrated. Not to mention burnt toast.

• Pick simple recipes. This way you don’t have to put off cooking with your child till the child is a certain age. Some simple suggestions are spreading butter/cream cheese on bread, tearing lettuce, scooping melon, shredding cheese. Remember the idea is having fun, not creating a culinary wonder.

• Break down complicated recipes in to simple steps and involve kids in things like washing and cutting the veggies. Especially the vegetables like cauliflower, mushroom, beans, cucumber etc are easy to cut. I save the sturdy take out knives for this purpose. Safe on little fingers, sharp enough to slice through the vegetables.

• Slowly build up from the basics. For example show them how to spread jelly/cream cheese on toast. Follow it up letting them do the spreading on their own. Then introduce a picture recipe like this. Later discuss the process with your kids.

• If there are siblings and you are working together on a recipe, assign each child a specific role like mixer, washer etc. Trust me, cuts down on lots of squabbles.

• What you make in the kitchen with the kids does not always have to be an edible recipe. You can try play dough recipes or bubble recipes.

• Encouraging children to invent their recipes can be a good thing. I allow a highly restricted version of this. For me the first priority is not to waste food. So I let them combine and test only a limited set of ingredients, which I know for sure will produce and edible concoction.

• Last but not the least, follow safety measures and hygiene.

Some cook books I enjoyed

If you are thinking of a gift to children in the 3-6 age group, these books are excellent.

• Pretend Soup And Other Real Recipes By Mollie Katzen and Ann Henderson
• Cool Kids Cook by Donna Hay

If you are fretting that your child does not eat vegetables, Jessica has some recipes to ’sneak’ veggies in to your child’s diet.

• Deceptively Delicious By Jessica Seinfeld

If you are thirsting for more information on the science behind cooking, look no further.

• The Cooking Book By Laura Colker

Technorati Tags: preschool kids, cooking with kids, pointers on cooking with kids, how to cook with kids, resources for cooking with kids, child development, cook to learn, science behind cooking

Technorati Tags: Child Development, cook to learn, cooking with kids, how to cook with kids, pointers on cooking with kids, preschool kids, resources for cooking with kids, science behind cooking