Exquisite Corpse
For those who have never heard of it, “exquisite corpse” is a surrealist game played with either words or drawings, in which several artist collaborate on a piece by only being able to see the tail end of what the previous person contributed.
When I did the collaborations with my 4-year, a few people commented that it reminded them of the “exquisite corpse” game, in having to elaborate and expand on someone else’s work.
By chance, a coordinator with Exquisite Corpse Festival contacted me about doing a page for a potential comic book idea with the same premise–picking up where the previous person left off, and elaborating on it. They thought the idea of me working with my daughter fit in well with the project, and might make for an interesting page. I thought it sounded fun.
When the time came, I was surprised to get not a drawing to elaborate on, but a snip of text. It was something that sounded like a large creature confessing to a therapist of some sort. …And that was it. I had no idea what this creature was supposed to look like or anything. No clue of what had happened before it.
So I started by just drawing a dragon head. I tried to make him sort of expressive…if he was confessing his tale, he’d probably be pretty personable, right? I wanted to make him very “foresty” (maybe just because it’s autumn, and I wanted to use the colors), but that’s about as far as I got. I wasn’t sure WHAT to do with him next.
I showed our daughter. It was strange–it’s nothing at all like what we usually do. But we love experimenting and having fun drawing together, so I was sure she’d come up with something cool.
Sure enough, she drew a big circle body and looked at it for a minute. Then she added some zigzag lines. He was in an egg. “He’s hatching!” she said. And certainly, he was. Awesome! I decided for my part, to have him telling a story about an “awkward phase” he had gone through. That way, it didn’t matter WHAT he looked like in previous pages. Pretty unintentionally clever, kiddo…!
Now, we’ve been playing around drawing monsters, which are quite fun. We’ll see what comes of it. After all, it’s all just one big surrealist experiment, right?
(What looks like a pink arm on this red & blue one is actually…um…an udder? Apparently, they just learned about milking cows at preschool.)
(This little purple fella is combing his beard)
Post-Halloween Post
I had planned on making my own R2D2 costume (at my daughter’s request), but since Halloween plans were dampened by a bad week-long case of strep throat for the little one, I was a bit distracted, and time sort of slipped away. Luckily, inspiration struck at the grocery store, when I found a sad little kid’s Vader costume for 6 bucks in the Halloween aisle. It came with a tiny cape that was way too tight around the neck, so I just extended it by sticking a longer piece of velcro to it where the ends met up. I mean, technically, Vader DID CREATE C3PO, so I think it’s a better companion piece than R2. …At least, that’s what I’m telling myself.
But Vader alone wasn’t enough–I wanted to spice it up a little, so I wore a sugar skull shirt (because it’s black and I already own it), which gave me the idea of painting the helmet. There are a bajillion sugar Star Wars characters online (which I love), so I just grabbed a paint pen (which I already had) and BOOM–two minutes later, my costume was complete.
The kid was feeling better, but still pretty sick, so we just went down the street & back. She had a chance to do her thing, and then she had fun handing out candy. People seemed to dig her homemade costume. We even saw a kid dressed as Vader, one as Yoda, and another as a Jawa! Star Wars still lives, if you ever have your doubts.
So if the costume giddiness is over and you’ve got the dressup blues, I present, for your consideration, a paper doll I made ages ago for an art show I once had. She’s got a mix of old-skool circus performer, pinup girl, derby blocker, and steampunk fanciness. And if paper dolls aren’t your thing, just head on over to that bucket of candy. There’s one in there calling your name….
Animal Doodles with the Kid
So we’ve been drawing animals lately, my daughter and I…
After the post about the collaborative illustrations I did with our 4-year old daughter lit up, I was flooded with a ton of wonderful, inspiring ideas from people all over the world. Make some kid ones! Make some happier ones! Make one that looks like your daughter!
And we did. And we had so much fun. The thing is, when we made them the first time, it’s not something that was very well-planned out. It happened initially by chance. It was, as Bob Ross said, a “happy accident.” We did it for fun, just because it was something we loved to do together.
But sometimes I found myself trying very hard to draw faces that I thought people would like. As an illustrator, I am VERY comfortable working with other peoples’ ideas. But when I try too hard on my own to make something I THINK someone will like (as opposed to what I just enjoy or would like to make FOR them), it always falls flat. So we laid off the heads for awhile, and took a little break.
Until one day our daughter asked me if I could draw her some heads again. “This time can we draw an elephant one?” she asked. “Of course!” I said.
…Man. She always has the best ideas.
And so we did. And the life was back! And as much fun as we had with heads, I realized that the reason it was starting to feel so strange was that I was trying too hard to do something that I THOUGHT people wanted to see, as opposed to what I really REALLY enjoy doing with her.
So we started simply–by drawing an animal for every letter of the alphabet. She would think carefully about what animal would be for each letter, and then focus intently when I’d give her an animal head to draw the body on.
She had so much fun choosing animals for letters! I said, “maybe we could spell your name with them?” And we did.
I laid out letters for each of the animals. I thought it’d be fun for her room to be able to spell out her name with each print. I thought it’d be fun, too, to do a print of all of the animals together…
Then we kept going, beyond the alphabet, to whatever animals we both felt like doing.
And you know what? I love them! And we had so much fun.
It really would be nice if, once you learned a lesson, you never had to learn it again. I still constantly have to keep myself focused on letting go of my expectations; on enjoying what IS instead of what SHOULD or COULD be. Usually I find the best things come that way.
Our head collaborations are not over. They’re still a very fun project we do together. But it’s good to mix it up sometimes, too.
The lesson I keep learning and have to relearn again and again is that other peoples’ input is SUCH a great source of inspiration for me, but that trying TOO hard to create something specifically that other people might like is a dead end. DO WHAT YOU LOVE and do it with all the joy you have, just for the sheer joy of doing it, and people are bound to enjoy it and feel that love in it.
And if they don’t…well, why do you care, as long as you’re happy?
Because I liked them so much, I decided to put all the letters on RedBubble as prints. And some of the plain animals are there, too. If you like them too, or if you want to build your own name out of animals, that’s where they’ll be…!
A Portrait
Call me old fashioned, call me overprotective, but I’m a little weird about having my daughter’s face all over the internet. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that the internet, while a wonderful and amazing resource, can be quite creepy.
If there’s anything that I’ve learned from the “Collaborations” post going viral is that nothing is sacred. People are free to say and do anything from behind the protective shield of a computer screen. And they do.
I am reminded of an installation piece by Iraqi artist Wafaa Bilal, who lived in a room for a month with an internet-controlled paint gun. Anyone at all could log on and shoot him, with no repercussions, no consequences. And they did. A LOT. SO much so that he was haunted and traumatized by it. As this article states, “…when people no longer fear reprisal from their actions then they will become monsters with little regard for other human beings.”
So if I’m so protective of her, why post anything at all about my daughter? Simply put: she is an enormous part of my life. I know the things I do with and for her are things another mother or father might like to know, or might feel better for having read. People can be nasty, and while I’m a big girl and can handle it, I feel there’s no real reason (other than the fact that she is, in fact, super adorable) to show her face. Cropping and sideshots, folks. That’s just how it goes.
But since my artistic likenesses aren’t exactly photorealistic, I feel fairly comfortable sharing a painting I did of her. My first one of her, actually–and it was pretty intimidating. Photos rarely capture someone’s personality, and I find with portraits, I will sometimes paint it as closely as I can to the photo, and yet there is something always missing: the personality, which (unless you know the person) is difficult to grasp and (even if you do know them) is difficult to separate from.
So I wanted to draw my daughter with a few of my favorite girlie accessories: She-Ra’s sword, Leia’s belt, Wonder Woman’s golden lasso, and Leia (as Boushh)’s holster.
One time, my daughter told me she wanted a “gown” to play dressup, so we got some pink thing (a dress? A nightgown?) at my friend’s vintage clothing sale for $3. At the time, her kid-drawings were nothing more than circles with faces, and lines for arms and legs. She called them “monsters,” so I recreated them in acrylic in the background.
When she saw the final piece, she looked for a minute with a critical eye and said, “…is that me?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Is that mine drawings?”
“Yes,” I said. “I put them on the painting. Do you like it?”
She paused for a long time. “I think it is beautiful.” She said.
And that’s pretty cool.
Keeping Busy
My husband just left on a very long trip. I mean like 9 months. (Although the last time it was for a year, so I’ll just be thankful for that.) There are already a million and one ideas all over the internet, but having been in and around the military for nearly all of my life, there are a few things I’ve picked up that have worked for me to help pass the time while loved ones are away (for whatever reason), and a few more things I’ve learned to help a KID pass the time.
For the grownups, the main thing anyone will tell you is to KEEP BUSY. My husband calls me a shark, because apparently they cannot stop moving or they’ll die. He used to say that each time he went away, he would come home to my having built an entire shelving unit or having done a dozen home improvement projects. That’s just how I roll. Keeping busy, for me, helps keep my mind from watching the clock.
Roller derby was a good distraction in the past. Work. Friends. Projects. Family.
I always warn family and friends to expect a ton of conversation if they call—I work from my computer at home, so I can sometimes go days without talking to an actual grownup. When you call, you might want to be sure you have a little time to chat with me. I’ll probably talk to you about all kinds of random things, down to a new detergent I’m trying or something. Sorry. This is the kind of stuff I bore my husband with on a daily basis.
This trip, I started keeping a little notebook by the bed to sort of write little notes in at the end of the day. Last time, it seems like day to day moved so quickly that I’d forget the seemingly inconsequential things, like a road being repaired, or a new chair for the bedroom. When he came home, I can imagine it must’ve felt like he hadn’t been a part of any of it. It may be boring to read when he gets back, but that’s okay.. I don’t ALWAYS write in it, but if something’s on my mind, it helps. And if he never reads it, that’s cool too. As a matter of fact, maybe it should just be a journal for yourself. There might be all KINDS of crazy stuff in there…
Usually, we pick a TV series to watch together. Well, separately. Or you could both read the same book in separate places.
The first deployment, our daughter was so little (not yet 2 years old), it was difficult for her to understand what was going on. There are all kinds of fun projects for older kids, but not so much for the littler ones. I found with our daughter, what helped was a book from a place called Flatten Me. My husband thought it was a bit silly, but we put daddy’s face into a visual storybook we could read at night and see, and that really helped. We had a “Daddy Doll” that ACS gives free to families, and that was fun to hug the last deployment. This time around, he sits by her bedside table, and we kiss him goodnight.
Now that our daughter’s a little older, she’s a lot more able to understand that daddy’s gone for a long time. I can involve her in sending care packages or writing emails. There are a TON of ideas out there for kids to count down time, but the key in parenting (I find) is finding out what works for YOUR kid, and being totally cool with that, and not letting anyone else make you feel bad for doing anything differently.
For us, with a crafty artsy daughter, I decided to make a paper chain. My friend Ashley B. is a crafty schoolteacher with two kids, and she gave me this idea she used with her kids when her husband was gone: She made a paper chain with her kids, and every day they would tear off one chain as a countdown to when daddy would be home.
(This is Ashley B’s paperchain. The giant rubber band ball is a decoration they use to hang up their kids’ artwork)
But since countdown days always change, I decided we’d make a link each day to add ON to a chain, and maybe decorate the house with it when he comes home. We have a little “Daddy Chain” basket, with strips of construction paper, a stapler, and stickers to decorate each one with, and I write the number of the day on the back of each one. If things get busy one day, or we forget, I just add a blank one on later. No big D. The thing with all these projects is to let them be there to HELP you, not to feel like they’re a chore. Last thing anyone needs is more stress, or pressure to be a Superparent.
We also spruced up a “Daddy Hat.” This is another idea I took directly from my friend Ashley B (the schoolteacher and fellow army wife).
(This is Ashley B’s daughter’s ACU hat. It’s okay to totally snatch ideas from your friends–that’s what military “family” is for.) 🙂
I got a regular ACU hat, and took a nametape (that my friend Ashley D made for a craft show, but that you can order from any clothing sales or alterations store) and stuck it on the back. (In aviation, the term “stick buddy” is like your copilot, your pal.) I found an easy flower tutorial on Pinterest and threw a few quick flowers together (my daughter picked the colors). Ashley’s cool tip was that the flowers are actually PINNED on (in our case, with a bobby pin) so you could change them out later if you want. And there ya go!
(This one is ours. A wee bit too big for her, but she loves it.)
Another good thing that helps is letting her decorate a package box. Just get a bunch of your favorite size of Flat Rate boxes from the post office, and bring a few home. Let her go crazy decorating the inside & outside. Take her to the store to pick some things out to put in the package. Let her be a part of it.
So, if you have a partner that’s gone for long periods of time, how do you pass the time on your own? If you have kids, what works for you with them?
…AND THE WINNER IS…
First off, I want to give a great big THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH to everyone who participated in our little contest! Win or no, I think it’s amazing how wonderful it is that everyone was able to connect with someone else for such a wonderful experience. Myla said as we were looking through the over 200 entries: “I’m so very PROUD of those people!” And I am, too.
I sent each entrant a personal message of thanks, and our own doodle of the contest head, just for them. Myla & I spent a long time sorting through the entries, and I have to tell you, she was SO excited at what everyone had done. I mean, visibly excited and thrilled. It took a lot of honing down to get her to narrow it down–she wanted to pick them all. And since it was SO very difficult to choose, I decided to not only pick one winner…but THREE. I pretty much let the 4-year old take the lead on choosing, and I respected each of her choices. So, without further ado, here are the winners, in no particular order (since the prize is the same):
Now, when our kid doesn’t win, she gets upset. (She was actually a little upset at first that she couldn’t win THIS contest.) But I’ve taught her to say “I really really wanted to win, but I’m very happy for you.” 🙂
Telling a wonderful story was not factored into our decision, but in the spirit of stories, I will tell you some tales of the winning pieces.
- The girl and her robot were created by Christine Kenney and her 6-year old son Desmond. Since the collaborations post, Christine had been meaning to try this with her son, and hadn’t found the time until the contest idea came up, and they enjoyed it a great deal.
- The next (very colorful) piece was created by Susan Garver and her 5-year old Eden. Eden saw the woman as a unicorn with a flower friend. Later, when adding the final touches, Susan remembered the loss of a family friend’s child, whose favorite color was “rainbow.” She finished it with her in mind, and hopes to eventually give it to the family.
- And finally, Laurie Silverstein passed this drawing back & forth to her older daughter. The story goes that when her daughter was around 4, she was happily singing “zip a dee doo dah” in a grocery store cart, and then suddenly burst into tears at the thought of being a mommy…It occurred to the little girl that her own future kids might starve because she “didn’t know where the stores are.” Years later, the daughter got a shoulder tattoo that said “zip a dee doo dah,” to remind her, I suppose, that it will all be okay.
There were so many beautiful stories that weren’t told, and so many beautiful pieces that weren’t chosen, from ALL OVER THE WORLD. Teachers sharing it with their classes, nurses collaborating with patients, families doing the project at a family get-together. Friends adding to the piece from far away to combine a single piece. I sincerely hope it was a fun and fair experience, win or no, for everyone involved. The most amazing thing to come of the Collaborations post, for me, has been hearing about all the wonderful ways the post has inspired you all to do similar projects with your family & friends. And that’s the best thing of all, in my book.
So thank you again to everyone who entered! They were all so beautiful and we are all so very proud. Thank you SO VERY MUCH!
And please, go check out all the beautiful entries on the Facebook page!
A Star Wars Crush
Once upon a time, in a galaxy far far away, our daughter was terribly sick from a flu and was relegated to basically lying in front of the television. We had watched nearly every kid’s movie imaginable already. It was my birthday, and I had just gotten the entire Star Wars series on blu-ray. I wondered…is New Hope too “grownup” for a robot-loving kid? I asked her if she was interested in a movie about robots and outer space. She said yes…
And that was where her love of C3PO began.
Funnily enough, C3PO was my favorite as a kid, too. (When had I painted our Munny family portraits well before her discovery, you may notice I was C-3PO.) Yes, R2 was funny and silly and snarky, but you wouldn’t really know what his beeps & whistles meant without the other half of the conversation. 3PO was silly and personable and charming. And our daughter developed a “crush” of sorts on him. All you’d need to do is say “Oh deah!” in that dainty little accent, and she’d giggle tremendously, as if she had just been spoken to by a movie star. This meant that she would often ask ME to pretend to be C3PO, which I didn’t usually mind doing (even in the grocery store).
When she asked for a doll, I decided to scour the internet for one I might make, and came across the idea to make one from a wooden artist’s figure model. Once painted and presented, he brought lots of kid-smiles.
I made her a shirt with sharpies.
I made her (by request) what turned out to be one of the (unintentionally) creepiest dolls I’ve made. (C-3PO doesn’t work well as a soft doll, we found out. But she liked him anyway.)
I appliqued a shirt.
And she even made her own C-3PO shrinky dinks and drawings.
So this year, when it came to Halloween costume choices, she had one request from the get-go: she wanted to be C-3PO. Now if you’ve seen the pre-made costumes online, they look pretty goofy. So I decided to get abstract with this, and see if we could pull it off cosplay-style.
Since I didn’t want her face to be covered completely, I cut up a gold plastic craft store mask. I had seen all these awesome online tutorials about how to build your own cardboard armor, so I built up a chestplate and back with cardboard, masking tape, and paperclay (which is super fun stuff). When it dried, I sanded it and painted it gold. I got a black bodysuit, and used fabric glue to tack on little pieces of gold “plating” to the arms.
I got a super cheapo set of kid’s elbow, wrist, and kneepads and painted them gold. Got a pair of gold dance leggings for kids, to which, after putting them on for the first time, my daughter exclaimed, “Oooh! These feel soft to my legs!” 
A pair of costume glasses spraypainted gold (with stripes on the eyes–she was VERY insistent that it have stripey eyes), and BOOM! We have a funky C-3PO costume.
So there you have it! Yes, it’s strange. And yes, it’s unusual. But you know, it was fun to make and she ABSOLUTELY LOVES it. She walked around with her arms stiff, saying “Oh DEAH!” Hopefully it’s at least a step above the storemade ones, and passable enough that people won’t make fun of her while she walks by (because if they do, they can expect my momma banshee to come out).
I was going to try maybe a little brown pullover and get by as a Jedi, but she asked if I could be R2 with her. Oh lord! I guess if she’s willing to go all out, I should too. But I think I might go a LIIIIIIITTLE simpler on mine. 🙂
Your’e So Lovely!
It’s SO amazing to see all the beautiful entries coming in from all over the WORLD for the contest…and even more amazing hearing all the wonderful stories of the fun you all had creating them! Don’t forget, Monday is the last day to enter, so let’s see what you’ve got!
Keep ’em Coming…
Contest entries are coming in from all over, and they’re so awesome! Have you entered yet? …Looks like you all are having a lot of fun with it, and I want to see MORE! One more week to enter! If you want to give it a shot, head on over to the last blog post and try it yourself. Good luck and most importantly: have a great time with it!
WHAT?? A Contest!
Okay, whew. Here we go. If you’ve read some of my older blog posts, like this and this, you’ll know that despite my best efforts, I have amassed quite a considerable amount of success at FAILING in the realm of “contests” (see how I put a positive spin on that?).
Contests primarily function to draw outside viewers to a certain website/blog. Meaning if I have a mediochre entry, I can remedy my mediocrity as long as I can simply get enough people to vote for my mediochre entry, thus drawing attention to the website and gaining favor. Totally understandable. I get that. But totally inaccurate, and unfair, in my opinion. Heartbreak ensues.
So I decided to run my OWN contest.
Not because I want to reign supreme and lord over all things art. Not to finally be the “one in charge” of choosing a winner. (Actually, that part worries me, as a frequent non-winner. I know how it feels not to win, and I am going to dislike being the person to be the cause of that for someone.) So you want to know why I’m holding a contest, then? Really? Because I appreciate everyone who reads the stuff I post…and because I REALLY want to see what you all can do with this.
After the Collaborations post made such a hubub, I thought it might be fun to have you all try it out for yourselves. So I drew a head for you.
I’d like you to make something awesome with it….BUT HERE’S the CATCH: you have to make it WITH ANOTHER PERSON. You could have a kid help. You could have a friend help. A grandmother, a neighbor, a relative, a stranger. Anyone! And you don’t have to paint–you can sew, you can paste, you can marker, doodle, photograph, whatever. You can paint or draw on top of it, or cut it out. (And if you’re going to cheat and only create something by yourself, at least have the decency to use your nondominant hand as your collaborator, since I’ll have no real way of monitoring this) There doesn’t have to be any deep meaning, or it even look like you imagined it would. The beauty is in the experience of creating something WITH someone else. Of not trying too hard to MAKE it be something, and just enjoying what it becomes.
Then scan or take a picture of what you created, and send it to me by Oct 14th at busymockingbird@gmail.com.
(And do I have to say this? Please, don’t send me anything obscene or disgusting. I mean, my FOUR YEAR OLD will eventually be looking at these, and I’d like to not traumatize her until she’s at least in her teens.)
And here’s the deal: the winner won’t be determined by the number of posts you make or likes you get. Maybe that would benefit me in some way, but it’s not fair. So the winner will be determined by my daughter and me. We’ll pick which one is the most creative, most interesting, most enjoyable. I’ll post a bunch of them up on the facebook page in the process, just to show you all what other people are doing. Just like in Highlander, there can be only one. But I might be compelled to throw in a small print for a few runners up….so feel free to share this post on Facebook to have friends try it too!
So what does the winner get? Hm. Well, after taking suggestions via facebook, I’ve decided that the prize will be a signed custom collaboration portrait by my daughter and me. I’ll put some stipulations here, since I don’t want my daughter chained to an art table, sweating away… No more than two faces for the winner. I draw them, and she turns them into whatever she fancies. (I can sometimes give her suggestions, but she usually goes in her own direction, and I’m not going to scold her for using her imagination. I can’t MAKE her draw something specific, but I can suggest it.) Then I paint it up, we sign it, and send it to you! Sound good?
The thing is, I’d REALLY like you to to do something special to YOU. Find a loved one, meet a new person, collaborate with someone at a nursing home or a hospital. Have a classroom help. Get creative, and ENJOY it, not just because you want to win, but to really enjoy the experience!
So to recap:
1. Do something awesome with this head. (right click the image, save it to your desktop, print it out–thick paper might work best)
2. Create it WITH another person.
3. Send a picture or scan of it to me at busymockingbird@gmail.com.
4. Deadline is OCT 14! My daughter & I will pick the winner, and announce it a few days later.
5. Winner gets a signed custom portrait!!
This is the first contest I’ve ever run. I’m not a pro at this or anything. We’ll see how it goes. I mainly want to see everyone get creative and have fun in the process, so I’ll do my best to make sure I work it out right on my end. So I wish you all luck!!!
Are you ready? Are you SET? THEN GOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
busy mockingbird 