Creative Disaster

It brings me so much joy when I see my children get inspired by something that I am passionate about. I can think of many examples just this last week. I caught one of my girls "reading" a Love Inspired book. The other one decide to try her hand at scrapbooking. Her medium: the floor in the office. Her supplies included an entire bottle of Elmer's glue and various articles from a nearby trashcan. (Not to worry, there wasn't anything 'gross' in there, just scraps from my latest project.) Though I must admit that my initial reaction of her little project was far from "joy". I didn't realize the humor in the situation until I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing after I asked, 'What are you doing?!' and she replied, 'I'm scrapbooking. It's sooooo pretty. There's you mommy and that's me!' She pointed to the discarded pictures she used in her collage. Too cute. I'm mad at myself for not taking a picture of it, but I didn't want her to get the idea that what she did was okay and that I'd be quite delighted if she did it again. Two days ago, I got asked by a certain rather curious little boy, "Can I take a picture of the Christmas tree so that I can remember what it looks like forever?" Whoohoo! Not only did I get to teach about something I love, but it counted as school hours as well, who can ask for anything more!

So Art Lesson I: Taking a picture of a lit Christmas tree in a dark room. We took several shots to compare... to be honest, I had him take a picture with every single pre-set function my camera comes with. Pretty advanced stuff for first grade... I know some adults that don't have any clue what the different icons are for. After each picture, we looked in the viewfinder to see how our picture came out. Some were washed out to the point you couldn't make out any of the lights at all. Most were blurry beyond recognition. But then there were a couple settings that bathed the picture in beautiful golden aura that captured the truly invigoration essence of a brightly lit Christmas tree. So ask my son which setting to use to take a good picture of a Christmas tree, and he'll tell you truly, "The one with the candle." Such a smart boy.

Art Lesson II: F-Stops, Shutter speeds, and eyeballs. It was a perfect opportunity to explain how a camera works like an eye. I turned up the camera volume and had him take a couple more pictures then explained the delay in the shutter was like an eye blink. Then I held a light up to my eye and had him watch the black part of my eye shrink as the light got closer and told him that a camera works the same thing... just not automatically, unless your using that function. I told him how those settings on the camera are different variations of big eyes and quick blinks, or little eyes and slow blinks, or any combination. I had him set the camera to the fireworks, which I explained was big eyes, slow blink and that became:

Art Lesson III: how to make light art. With the camera volume still set high (and a new set of batteries in the camera) I had him get up close to a Christmas light, hit the shutter and move the camera around in a circle until he heard the shutter. What a surprise to find circles of light in the picture! (I wasn't surprise, of course, but it's his first time.) He took dozens more, shaking the camera differently, capturing different colors of light. He was hooked. I should get some of his pictures enlarged to poster size for him to hang on his wall, then maybe he'll always remember:

Art Lesson IV: beauty is in the eye of the beholder.