Collaboration

 

Last month the kids and I repainted this old wooden parrot that had been living on the fence post by our front gate.  I bet it's been there for the last 20 years.  Most of its paint was gone and the wood was weathered.  The kids took turns painting bright colors and patterns on the parrot and when they were finished I painted on the black details and gave it a nice coat of varnish to finish it off.  I love how it turned out.  The parrot now lives in Daniel and Addie's room, perched above their window.  This piece marks our first successful collaboration.  Here's how our collaborative efforts usually go:

After reading my friend Greta's adventures in paper mache with her kids, I decided to pull out the paints this afternoon so the big kids could help me with a project.  I wanted to change a painting I had worked on a few years back (that I never really liked all that much) so I could hang it in Nathan's room.  The idea: Have the kids finger paint leaves on the trees.  The collaboration started out strong.  The kids wanted to add some more colors to the trees and I agreed and they actually looked great.

Then.  Then.  I asked the kids to paint stripes on the ground.  Daniel didn't want to paint stripes, he wanted grass.  I insisted on stripes.  That was me firing the first shot and within seconds the battle between creative kids and psychotic art director ensued.  "Daniel, you're using too much paint."  "Addie, don't put a green stripe next to a green stripe!"  "DANIEL!  You just dripped brown paint all over the sky!"  "ADDIE! YOU CAN'T USE A STICK TO PAINT! IT'S GETTING DIRT ALL OVER THE PAINTING!"  Kids, I'm so happy we shared this quality time; building memories.  I'm sorry your Mom does not know how to play well with others.  Please forgive me.

The painting actually turned out pretty well.

Please excuse the Cybill Shepherd frosted filter on these photos.  There were a lot of kid fingerprints on the camera lens.  Yes, I crabbed at them about that, too.

Nathan, I hope you appreciate the sacrifice your brother and sister made in their efforts to make your room look cool.