stevo's Journal

May 19 was Emily's birthday and she is 12 now. That's an important birthday. She is hot on redesigning her room. On her wall space she wants a painting. She decided that she wants one of Lizzy's graphical type images. I happened to have a 53X33 canvas stretched with only one coat of gesso on it. She wants to paint it herself. We had a session monday where the 3 of us painted outside on strong sheets of white Strathmore bristol. In order to get both girls adjusted to physically handling the paint, palette and all, they need coaching on easy questions that I hadn't thought about since I was very young. I hardly even remember, but that doesn't matter, it was fun to get them going and training them to see and block in the shapes and intentionally mix color.

I'm lucky that this was such a key desire of hers and that it wasn't a yearning for a bling-bling mall purchased thing, but an art lesson. Wow! What great kids.

May 25 is Lizzy's birthday and she will be 15.

I remember when I first met them all and Emily was turning 9 and Lizzy was turning 12, Emily's age now. How amazingly different these 2 kids are. Anita is as overindulgent as a mother can be, but her hobby of scrapbooking family photos carries over to the girls and they even think in terms of decision making and design decisions now in everything they do. They like to home make everything and make their own music, too.