Introducing, little blank canvas.

I know 15 years from now when my girls turn 20 they will not ask for the room full of art projects that I've saved through the years. I already have one large tub of artwork and find myself freezing over the garbage can because I don't want to "forget" what they did or have them forget how special these pieces are to our family. This is why I am starting a new blog just for the girl's artwork and art-centered hobbies and successes. I am calling it little blank canvas.

I don't want them to have my reserve and fears of exploring their talents and showing them to the world. A blank canvas to me is something very unique, almost like a clean piece of paper - it's open to any words the author wants to write, and a canvas is open to anything the artists want to paint. Music was my inward and outward expression of myself - but I was always fearful of showing it to others. My hope through this site is to let them know how proud I am of them and their achievements and it's ok to let others know about their talents - isn't that how we change the world?!!

I took the girl's drawings of our family and framed them in a nice black frame to showcase them in a classy way. From top left: cici, family portrait, nini, portrait of daddy she drew at school, nini, portrait of mommy she drew at school, cici, portraits of me and Craig. I haven't done this yet, but I will mark on the bottom of each picture - on the matte- the date and which of the girl's drew the picture. I don't imagine changing these four pictures out, but keeping this framed just like it is until the girls want it in their own home - and then, they just might have to fight me for it!

I placed the girls in a once a week, one and half hour art class put on at the community center. Every week the explore the different types of art. Both girls were ask to draw from real life a blue and white pitcher vase with daisies in it, using the chalk as their medium. I am amazed at the job both of them did, really - I'm raising little artists! Before I framed it, I sprayed aerosol hairspray over the artwork so the chalk medium would not wipe off on the glass or mattes. Cici's was too large to matte, but Nini's fit perfectly with one. To add a little pizazz to the frame I tied a bow around the frame and used stickers with their names. This way everyone knows who drew which picture.