Thank You Nana & Papa

This is the mountain range that Alex drew as a thank you to Nana & Papa for renting the Cascade Cabin in Montana a few weeks ago.  He used the new Crayola True-to-Life crayons with tri-color tips.

Mario Jumping on a Goomba in Chalk

by Alex Evans

Etch-A-Sketch WALL*E

Alex has a natural talent with the Etch-A-Sketch. He drew this picture of WALL*E the robot from memory in just a few minutes.

Sea Turtle Eating a Jellyfish

I asked Aaron what he called this piece displayed as part of the Preschool Spring Concert and Art Show. His answer: "Sea Turtle Eating a Jellyfish".

Defending the Castle

Alex made this for art class, and it also was featured on the back of the Spring Concert program. Alex says it is a "picture of the good guys jumping out of the castle onto the bad guys to sneak up on them." The background sky is watercolor and the rest is crayon.

Flat Stanley the Cowboy

Alex read a book at school this year about Flat Stanley, who was so flat that he could incorporate himself into paintings, slip through narrow cracks, and get into all sorts of adventures. The kids were assigned to draw Flat Stanley in an unusual setting. This is Flat Stanley as a cowboy. We liked his use of perspective, with the larger cactus near Stanley and the smaller cacti up on the hills behind him.

Donuts With Dad 2007

Becky has tried to stay active in the parent association at the boys' school. In addition to being the Grade Parent for Aaron's class, she volunteered to chair this year's "Donuts with Dad" event. We got up early and I took the boys to the preschool gym where we got to have milk and donuts. There was Starbucks coffee and hot chocolate to warm us up.
Before the party even started, Becky and I got up early to fetch the donuts from Kroger's. She had previously placed her order and they had spent all night making 30 dozen attractively decorated donuts - frankly the best looking batch of donuts we had ever seen.
To decorate the gym, the kids were asked to color pictures of their dad. Aaron drew a picture of me in his favorite setting - a playground.

Alex drew this great picture of me. The sad thing is that my artistic talents haven't progressed past this stage - this is about what my own self-portrait would look like. After our sugar rush, the kids went to school and I went on to work. The word around the school was that this was a great success. We enjoyed it. Next year - Muffins with Mom.

Alex's Mario Kite

Alex made this kite in Art class. It is decorated with the images from the kids' favorite video game - Super Mario Sunshine.

AARON in Camp Letters

Notice that Alex took 2 different pictures of the fire for the 2 A's in Aaron's name. He did ones for MOMMY and DADDY too that were quite clever.

ALEX in Camp Letters

Alex took these as part of his Flash Bee Club assignments. He looked for items around camp shaped like the letters in his name.

Flash Bee Club

Alex's Flash Bee Photo Club met today. They challenged him to take candid pictures, such as these girls swinging...
...posed pictures like this closeup of Aaron...
...and studies in light and shadow, such as this lily pond. He's really enjoying taking his own pictures, so we're lending him the camera more and more to see what he can capture.

Light and Shadow

As part of Alex's Flash Bee Photo Club, his teacher asked him to take pictures of interesting shadows. It was a very sunny day, so Alex and Aaron started by making shadow pictures with construction paper. They placed a piece on a cookie sheet, covered it in small items, and set it out in the sun. A few hours later, the sun had faded all of the exposed areas leaving a reverse image of their collage.
The sunny day also made for great shadow pictures for Alex to gather. This is the back of a plastic deck chair.
His new bike.
And a water bottle. He thought this was neat because it made a shadow, even though it was essentially clear.

Tiger Cub Acheivement 5D - Leaf Rubbing

Alex made this leaf rubbing using several different leaves and several different colors of crayon. As you can tell he further decorated it by drawing some bees and their hive amongst the leaves.

The Glass Museum

Nana & Papa Evans came into town yesterday for Grandparent's Day at Alex's school on Friday. While Alex was at school today, we took them and Aaron to the new Glass Museum that opened last year. This is a part of the Toledo Art Museum, located directly across the street. Since the Libbey Glass Company is located in Toledo, this has been known as the Glass City. Through the Libbey family and other generous donors, the museum had amassed a large collection of ancient and modern glass works. Of course they have glasses and bowls, but the collection includes tables, sculptures, and other art and functional pieces. The oldest are thousands of years old, though most of the pieces were hundreds to dozens of years old. Some of the more modern art pieces were made in recent years.



This punch bowl and table were made by the Libbey Glass Company for a World's Fair near the turn of the century - I think around 1905. Part of the art around us was the museum itself. It was designed by the ..... group from Japan and built by local contractors. The interior and exterior walls are made of glass and all of the corners are rounded - no right angles. Unfortunately, Aaron bumped his face into the glass at least 3 times because he didn't see a wall in front of him. The nearby security guard said that she did that too during her first week there.



Besides the glass collections, they have a glass furnace that is used by artisans and students. Since all of the walls are glass, you can watch them at work while you tour the museum.



The other surprise feature was this long room on one edge of the museum with movable stools, but no glass (other than the walls) so Aaron could wiggle around a little. It was hard being in a museum with lots of pretty displays that he couldn't touch, but overall he did a good job. Today was also my parents 37th wedding anniversary. I turn 36 this year, so the math checks out ;)

Playdough Cars

Alex and Aaron have really been enjoying the Cars movie from this summer, and since it came out on DVD, they've watched it 3-5 times a week and both of them have many lines memorized. Alex can act out whole sequences with multiple characters in different voices. His art lately has been centered around the various vehicles, for example, he's been coloring small poster-sized line drawings of the Cars cars (guess how many times a week we say Cars cars) that his Grammy Hardage drew and has started a book with his own original story and artwork about them. So its no surprise that, when faced with several cans of new playdough, that he'd come up with this.

After we got a shot of the art, he wanted to pose with his art. Since it was fresh playdough laying on a table, he bent sideways/backwards and layed the back of his head on the table.

This is a playdough Lightning McQueen that he made last month.

Large Cars Decorations by Grammy

Lizzie and Ramone
Guido and Luigi
Mater
Sarge
Stanley
Flo
Doc Hudson, Chick Hicks, and The King
Fillmore and Sheriff
Red
Mack and Lightning McQueen

Sally, Dinoco Lightning, Tractor, and of course, Alex