Family Drawing Time

Read this.

Last summer we rid ourselves of that pesky television and as an alternative to evening TV watching I bought some new games and art supplies.

The best purchase was these sketchbooks.

I bought one for everyone and everyone got new markers, colored pencils and oil pastels. The girls and I have spent a lot of time drawing in our sketchbooks. We don't collaborate, we just draw or write whatever is on our mind. It has been a nice way to wind down in the evenings and I love looking through them later to see all the different things they've made. Sometimes they'll dictate a story about their drawing and those are so fun to look back on.

In January we had filled them up so we took a little outing to Quality Art to buy new ones. We also bought a giant roll of butcher paper for collaborative drawing (just like the post above)

We have covered the table a few times and did some big drawings where we each added to one another's and we have made some wrapping paper but my favorite "giant butcher paper project" was this:

We cut up a Burpee seed catalog (for hours, I think) and made our imaginary garden. Each of us with a little plot to put whatever we wanted in. (Yes, those are my orderly rows.)

So...BLA BLA BLA! I said all that to say: I highly recommend some family drawing time. Either on your own paper but working side by side or an a ginormous paper working together. It's fun. It's relaxing. It's a great way to get your kids talking about what they're thinking about.

Now...if we could just get that one obstinate member of our family to participate.

Side note: That dream garden hangs in our hallway and we LOVE looking at it and so does everyone that comes to our house!