Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Restful sleep. Not

Sleeping Partners by Cecil Aldin

This is sort of what I look like in bed at night with the two dogs, and my guys all fighting for space.  Then I wonder why my back hurts.  I love this painting - done in pastels for a book Aldin published.  I'd love to have it.  But alas, the copies I've seen are hugely expensive for this HP Girl.

I may have mentioned before that the CO Boy and I like to draw before bedtime.  We try to do so at least once a week, but he has become quite fond of the exercise and last night he asked if we could draw every night.  Well hey, you don't have to ask me twice!  We sit in our pajamas, drawing pads on our laps, Stephane Grapelli on the CD player and quietly draw side by side.  It's the sweetest thing for me.

Last night he began to take an interest in drawing what you see.  He did his very best to copy a photo of a puppy who was pictured at a side angle with only part of his right eye showing.  Then he asked if I would show him how to use a tortillion to blend his pencil markings.  I must say (even if I'm a bit biased), the drawing was quite good for a first go.  The CO Boy is rather impatient, so I have explained to him how drawings are developed in layers and how we can't do all of it in one night, but rather, several nights.  He seemed satisifed with my explanation and we'll begin again tonight.  I'm a lucky mother to have a boy who enjoys some of the things I enjoy.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

My kind of house! There must be some psychic link going on here. Do you know, I don't have any recordings just of Grapelli, but I do have a couple of CDs of him and classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin playing that marvelous jazz he played, and I really love them! And it was just a couple of weeks ago that I ran across the "Sleeping Partners" pic while doing some research on some poetry about dogs.

Wish I could see that little boy's layers of drawings take shape night by night....

Margaret said...

I love that you do that together. My older girl is extremely artistic, but I'm not--so I sat and read while she worked on stuff. I wish I were better at crafts!