Emotional

Living with a 3 year old is a very emotional experience. Whether her feelings are rocking or mine are rolling, it's always a roller coaster around here. So naturally, we spend a lot of time talking about feelings, what they mean, and how we can deal with them.

Art is one of the ways that we regularly delve into our feelings. After our recent visit to the NC Art Musuem, I decided that we could use our discussions on our trip to inspire our own art.

We settled down at the kitchen table with some watercolor paper and oil pastels. We started by talking about all the paintings we had seen and how they made us feel. Belle was mesmerized by two paintings in particular, one of a storm at sea (I really wish I had written down the name of it!) and the other was The Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius by Volaire.

She started by recreating each of these paintings in her own way. We talked about the color choices and the emotions that they conveyed.


Then we moved on to our own creations. Sad was represented by blues, grays, and silver. I'm not sure what led to the line composition, but Belle was really happy with the way it turned out.

Happy was shown with bright, vivid colors and lots of flowers.

And my personal favorite, calm (a bit of a hidden message, you think???), is a drawing of the mountain river where we are buying some land. It is drawn with pastel shades and gentle waves.

It was relaxing to sit and watch Belle work. And the conversations we had were priceless. A fantastic art experience!