The Ella ART Report

Oh wait, I'm not done gushing! I forgot, I was going to talk about Ella's art! I know I'm a parent and have an incredibly biased opinion. But I truly think Ella is gifted when it comes to art. I am continually amazed at what she comes up with all on her own.

It always makes me so happy to watch her just grab some paper and markers or crayons or whatever and sit down and start creating! Of all the gillions of Christmas presents she received this year, I believe it is safe to say her absolute favorite has been the crayola art set she received, just like the one pictured on the left. She has this open almost everyday. And we put it away when guests come over to play so that it can stay her special thing.

I've been keeping a stack of Ella's artwork for awhile now (since last summer) meaning to scan them and get some posted on here. But we never got around to getting them scanned. The sun happened to be shining beautifully on our kitchen table the other afternoon. So I grabbed my camera and just took photos of them (next time, I'll have to remember to put white or black foam core under them on the table). I was actually inspired to do this when Ella brought home her first artwork from the after-school art class she just started.
The assignment was to draw the windmill from a drawn picture of a windmill they were looking at. It's funny, both Andrew and I asked her separately if the teacher helped her draw the black lines at all. And she said no! She did it all! Ella also told me that is a doghouse in red to the left of the windmill. Anyway, I'm hugely impressed, but again I'm biased. :-)

I'll continue to feature her art class works in the next few weeks.

Here are a couple more of my favorites and what Ella had to say about them:

"Fruit Bowl"--Ella just wanted to "decorate the whole page"."Grapey"--Another from Ella's Fruit Bowl Period.
(The whole fruit bowl fascination started with Ella's Pattern Fair project.)
"Lil"--This is Ella's first official portrait. One afternoon, Ella said to Lily, "Okay this is what we're going to do. You sit here like this." She had Lily sit criss-cross applesauce. And then proceeded to draw Lily sitting there, looking up at Lily every so often and then drawing what she saw. So what Lily is wearing in the picture is what she actually had on that day. And then she "just wanted to make a polka dot background."
"Me and Daddy Golfing"--This is Ella and Andrew mini-golfing at Golf Zone in Chaska, MN. Golf Zone is a regular Daddy/Daughter hangout all year long. They have both an indoor mini golf course as well as an outdoor course. Here's what Ella had to say about the picture, "I have the pink ball and daddy has the red ball. It's outside by the water." That is the rock wall there in black in the foreground.
"Untitled"--Ella made this during art at school. There were papers with different shapes on it and they could pick whichever shape they wanted and draw whatever they felt like out of it. Ella told me the turquoise is a waterfall. And the girl is Ella walking across a bridge over the waterfall.

And now here is a slideshow of more artwork by Ella from August through now: