Sketch Tuesday - on a tree

I thought it was high time that we got back into joining in Sketch Tuesday over on the Harmony Fine Arts blog.

The girls were reluctant to have a go - I think they are too used to drawing what they want rather than within a theme. It's a great way to challenge your drawing skills and expand though, so I told the girls that I intended to draw a picture and so they could too. It worked!

This week's theme is "on a tree". The youngest decided to draw a tree in bloom.

My 9 year old girl drew a kite stuck in a tree.

My 11 year old drew some Barn Owletts. 

And I drew a Fairy Wren. Do you know how long it's been since I actually sat down and drew something? Me neither! Too long! 

I think I will try to do this more often. Maybe you and your children want to join in the fun too?

Reluctant draw-ers?

My children go through periods of apathy with their drawing and as it's important to my husband and I that our kids are "arty" like we are, we try to keep them inspired.

There are so many ways to inspire a children artistically, but here is a simple one that has worked a treat in our home. I bought some simple but nice quality sketch pads to make into art journals. Then the kids and I went on an outing to our local scrapbooking store where they selected paper, stickers and plenty of bling!

They were so excited about all the pretty things we bought (most of which were $2 packets) that they set to work on decorating their art journals straight away. We covered to boring front cover with scrapbooking paper and the rest was just sticking on whatever they wanted.

They've been given free licence to make their journals their own - they can draw, write stories and prayers, stick in pictures they like, really just whatever they feel inspired to do.

They are so thrilled with their art journals that they've barely left them out of sight and they're already being filled with beautiful artistic works that they can keep and look back on.