Drawing with Miss J--a start to a couple projects!

Miss J sampling her smoothie with foam

School is back in session which means our oldest daughter has returned to teaching special education students. I'm thinking it is her 13th year of creating learning environments where kindergarteners through fifth graders excel. Our oldest granddaughter, started first grade! Our youngest granddaughter looks forward to kindergarten next year!

Mondays and Wednesdays, we get to host Miss J while her mama and her dad are at work. We read books. We cook together. She bakes delicious biscuits and can blend a mean smoothie. One of her favorite entrees is chicken soup with noodles so she will "preorder" soup as often as possible. Although, if she had a choice between soup and bacon, bacon would win every time! At the end of the day with us, we will ask what she wants for a meal the next time that she comes. Sometimes, she comes in the door with her "order" so we know she likes the opportunity to choose!

Top: J's work Bottom: Our work

We've also been drawing and coloring. I hope to hook her into embroidery. Her sister, Miss K likes handwork. This year, I'll get to see Miss K more often in the afternoons so I'm planning a stitching project that she can do too. (It is all about being fair!) With Miss J, I thought she might have fun making some art and then stitching it as an embroidery project.

I asked her to draw a picture which she did in a couple minutes. I liked her picture. I showed her how to trace and explained that we needed to make her drawing darker so it would be easier for her to trace. She agreed.

Then she added more circles. Some circles were good enough to add eyes and others weren't. Soon she was getting another piece of paper and sighed negatively as she drew her circle because it wasn't what she wanted.

I thought to myself how often I feel just like her when I try to draw! While I liked her work, I could tell the drawing session would be over soon if we didn't change up the activity. I asked if we could draw together. She thought that was a good idea.

She drew the circle with sleeping eyes, nose and a one line mouth which didn't suit her. I added pupils, eye brows and another line for the mouth. She added hair, an ear with earrings which she didn't like. I added more hair and a collar.

Our trio

She decided we needed to make another figure. By the time we had started on the third figure, she was ready for another activity. I doubt that we spent more than 20 minutes on this exercise. Note that the trio drawing is backlit with some words. This was my attempt at auditioning text as a background to the piece.

I loved what we had created together. Our most recent book that our book club, Thread Tales, read was "Girl Waits With Gun," written by Amy Stewart. There are three women in the story. You can watch a librarian review the book here. You can listen to Amy talk a bit about her approach to the book here.

While I wished we could have fleshed out that third figure a bit more, I decided I could draw a third figure on my own. Let me tell you, it was a lot more challenging to draw it without my helper!!!

My own work

I've wanted to sketch to develop my drawing skills. I don't have talent in the drawing area.  Last spring, I participated in an online activity where different sketchbook artists shared their talents. We were able to sketch along with them! Sadly, I didn't carve out the time to sketch all the lessons; but, I could see that practice would improve my skills and my confidence. Since the workshop though, I have spent almost no time practicing! (I need to make the time to practice!)

Drawing the figure on my own was tough as I struggled with the eye, nose and mouth shapes. Miss J had those placed as quickly as you or I would write the word "and!" I spent about half an hour on my pencil drawing, which is 10 minutes more than Miss J and I spent creating one figure!!!!

I'm considering using these drawings somehow as my next book club quilt. I had planned to stitch an entirely different design; but, since Miss J and I had this serendipitous experience, I'm feeling I'm ready to take on a new experience!

The review for this book will be a special one because Amy Stewart, the author, is planning to come to our reveal and have dinner with us before her speaking engagement later in the evening!

As for progress on the embroidery project, maybe on Miss J's next visit, we will put her initial design to fabric!