Art Homework

As promised, here are the results of the art homework project I gave my family for our holiday dinner party. At each place at the table there was a miniature easel for each guest to display their mini canvas. After dinner we cleared the table and lined up all of the easels to take pictures. It was really fun to see what everyone made.

These were made by my daughter Sam and her boyfriend Jesse. As a wonderful bonus, Sam told us during dinner that she made the Dean's List at college this semester. I'm so proud of her! And I think their canvases are very cool too.

My parents made theirs at their vacation home in the Adirondacks. My dad loves to kayak and he cut that little kayak in half and affixed it to his canvas. Mom used fabric, of course, and a little bit of metallic foil for the water.

My sister's family all created self-portraits. My brother-in-law Chris loves to cook so his portrait is made of food items - cloves for hair, pasta for a nose and a manly stubble of spices. Linda's is hand and machine sewn on fabric with some twigs as found objects, it's very her.

Five-year-old Sage created an abstracted watercolor version of herself - with a rainbow, she said. And twelve-year-old Whitman showed his drawing skill and love of anime and manga.

Carlos and I went with an insect theme and I had a hard time dragging him away from his current, very, very large abstract oil painting long enough to complete this miniscule-by-comparison project. His colored pencil and wax pastel butterfly and my printed and collaged beetle are very congenial.

I would definitely do something like this again. Watch out if you're invited to dinner at my house! There might be homework...