A few years ago I stumbled upon the art of Brian Andreas and just fell in love with his work. I have a few of his prints hanging in my stairway.
I have this one
and also this one.
I love the colors and the words. I just love words.
When I first purchased these prints, I had the idea that I'd like to have about eight of them going up the hall by my staircase. The price tag was beyond my budget and now I'm so grateful that it was. It forced me to come up with a different plan.
First I bought a package of crayola markers. I got the basic colors. Then I gave them to my kids with a stack of white paper. Rebecca and Lily were 3 and 6 years old. I put all the materials on the floor in a sunny spot of the hall. The instructions I gave them were to draw pictures of our family, their home, the pets, anything that they loved.
"Use lots of color", I told them.
This is what they drew.
I love these pictures, will love them forever, will take them with me to the old folks home, will probably be clutching them when I die.
Today Lily was being a little whiny. I knew just the thing for that kind of whiny. I took out the art supplies. I had some new cray pas and some new watercolors. Is there anything more seductive than the silky smooth glide of cray pas?
Lily could not resist.
Neither could Rebecca.
When their work is done I like to put them into these Ikea frames. These are the same frames I used in the first pieces that my kids did, as well as the prints by Brian Andreas. They are seriously cheap. I like how they really draw attention to the pictures and create a cohesive visual theme with the brightly colored frames. Also, did I mention that they are cheap?
Here's a lousy iphone picture of the stairway. See what I mean about the visual theme?
Here are the results of todays work.
More that they'll have to pry out of my cold dead arms.
4 comments:
Dude... that stairwell? Awesome.
Love your babies' pics...we have a lot of eclectic art at our house...oddly enough we have the wooden story person with that same quote on it "you are the strangest person..." We saw these story people by Brian Andreas on our honeymoon and around the country. You and I have the same taste sweetie. xo Mari
ps today i got the kids to settle down with homemade shrinky dinks =)
We love Brian Andreas' work too. We discovered his prints in Kennebunkport many years ago. For each kid we framed one and they hang over their beds. Spencer's is the same one that you have pictured above (the first one).
Jessica
My kids started out with all the art supplies they could wish for and their work scotch taped to our kitchen wall. Then my older daughter became a real artist and my house is full of her amazing work. It's worth it. P.S. My younger daughter didn't end up having an artistic bent, but she was a talented gymnast. Who knows what kids will latch onto and excel at?
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