Bellycast Painting

This is a commission I've been working on ...it's out of the studio now and safely delivered to the golden-haired mama : )

                                                                                                     Photo by Henneke 

                                                                                                                                                           Photo by Henneke 

Seven times around the sun

Feel like I've lost my moorings a little! January and February turned out to be unexpectedly busy. Lots of important things that needed attention have taken me away. Thank goodness for small projects for I have been beavering away through trips and hecticness. This morning, home again and  faced with having fallen way behind on the domestic front, I decided(as I am wont to do) that all that could wait, and instead I needed to come here to share some of the special happenings from these past weeks : )


Something about painting came up in conversation recently with smallie, and he said 'I never paint, you don't let me'. Gulp. While pondering whether this was true, instant inspiration came as to what to give him for his upcoming birthday. I'm not a huge fan of kids paints I've got to say, or kids brushes, or the massive clean up job afterwards. I passed that aisle in our local arts supplies shop and headed for the artists paintboxes, brushes and watercolor pads, not so expensive after all.

The morning of his birthday, not yet dressed for the day, with breakfast barely over and his packages just opened, he began to paint. There was something wonderful in the air around it.
 We are both loving this little set, easily packed in his small backpack to Nana and Papa's last weekend and its getting daily, totally independent use. Sometimes we paint together. That this little prince of my heart would be the hand that beckons me finally back to painting seems precious and only in-keeping with the quiet magic he has always brought.

He wished for a cycling day to a special, favourite spot with a castle for his birthday. 
A single rotation of my bicycle wheel under the canopy of trees and I instantly felt revived, we all did. 
 The problem with all this crafting I've been focused on is it has me firmly planted on my derriere. Not good.
I was also reminded of how I miss the movement and air of my pre-driving days.
For smallie and his dear friend that day was all about the bikes and balloons, binoculars and bubbles and perhaps most exciting of all... doing skids ; )

 By the end of that day I also realised that ouch, I so need to felt me a saddle cover!


A lovely friend and fellow fibre-artist Linda Grant came to visit, always a lively exchange of ideas and enthusiasm between us. She'd been telling me about Peg looms and the lovely rhythmical nature of the craft for students. Hearing her tell of it inspired me get a simple one for the handwork room at school and she kindly walked me through the basics. I've been reading in a Steiner publication that the gesture of weaving is akin to breathing... Love that.

 I (happily) seem to be surrounded by people whom when I say 'I'd really like to get one of those', respond with 'you could easily make one of those' or 'I could make that' and I often end up grumbling under my breath. Because...really? We simply can't make everything, not with all the other things we need to do on the average day. And yes, I too cherish the idea of settling into a handmade chair with a handstitched blanket and drinking out of our own pottery mugs. Yet ultimately I'm a realist, with my feet on the ground and I'm ever more aware of time and what we can honestly and fairly expect to do and get done while also working (some of us two jobs!) outside the home. 
All this, a pre amble to what smallie did when he noticed me trying my hand at weaving on the new loom. Without saying a word, he dug out a block of wood he's held onto for a long time. Found some discarded colouring pencils that were surplus to requirements and on their way out, in a charity bag by the door.
I said nothing... just quietly reached for my camera and watched.

He set to work, weaving away beside me. Just. Like. That.


...These are the things I want to remember : )