Saturday, November 24, 2007

Art at night; crafty days

Atlanta's High Museum has an annual event every Friday after Thanksgiving, when they stay open much of the night. This is the second time that we went with the kids. I hope we go every year. This museum is even more fun for our kids when they are in their pajamas, and it's night. Plus, those who wore PJs got prizes - so the kids won us some travel mugs.

They look like such country mice, in this picture I took in the elevator. I guess it had been several weeks since they went in to the city for anything but soccer games.

Freezing (or choking?) outside of the entrance.


There was an area set up with a live model dressed as an Ancient Egyptian and Gillen wanted to sit and sketch him through three fifteen-minute sets. In the third pose, he got to see his face - much more challenging to draw;) Jesse, in the red footed pj's, is actually drawing his own "series of shapes". He says he prefers his own modern art style to drawing real people.


After taking an audio headphone guided tour of the ancient art Louvre exhibit (lots of Ancient Egyptian and Greek sculpture that was amazing), Gillen said that he wanted to "see those paintings that are painted with lots of small dots". So we looked for some pointillism and found a special Impressionist exhibit where Cezanne and Degas and other greats made us all forget about the pointillism. All but Jesse. Jesse's legs had given out by then. Footed pajamas don't give much support. But they sure were great, earlier in the night, for sliiiding through those rooms that were free of people, but filled with his favorite modern art (later clarifying note - he did slide slowly, briefly and with full awareness of being appropriate - I'm not in support of free reign in that environment.)

A museum guide wagged his very long finger up at Nicolas when he tried to carry the tired boy on his shoulders - so at the end of our visit, Jesse mostly lounged (old Roman in a toga, being fed grapes, style) on the benches. I talked to him about the paintings I liked. He glanced at a few while he yawned.

This is a very scrap-booky post, isn't it? I have a need to document our life once in a while. A need which I used to fulfill, for a very brief time, by scrapbooking. Now that I blog, all of that luscious paper (yes, I used to have a paper habit, and it wasn't always recycled either) is freed up for other things. So today, we turned scraps of that beautiful paper into more paper chains, to go with the one that we have had hanging in our dining room since last Christmas. It worked there. All year. Really, it did. It was there for all holidays and birthdays and for the day that I received the hair ornaments and had a party in my hair. It isn't just green and red. It is so much more than that! I'll have to take pictures of it, tomorrow.

9 comments:

kelli said...

oh my gosh, we would so be there! That sounds like a dream... :) running around, OK, ;) looking through a museum at night! yep, a dream.

Deanne said...

Wow! That sounds like so much fun!

Angie said...

This post wasn't 'scrapbooky' at all! I love your posts and enjoy hearing about your learning experiences. It reminds me of what is important when it comes to our kids learning.

Have a great day.

Madeline Rains said...

Thanks Angie. Kelli, I want to clarify, in order not to give the image of running unschoolers in museums :/ that Jesse was sliding slowly and with much care and awareness of where we were. I better edit that. thanks. : )

kelli said...

I totally knew what you meant :)

I understand why you would want to edit it though.

Sara said...

What a cool event! Looks fun. Especially cool that your kids have the discipline to sit and sketch in a museum. Definitely a testament to their education.

Madeline Rains said...

Sara, it may be a testament to the fact that we don't go to museums very often. So when we do, it's new. And they hadn't drawn much in a while. I miss them being in art class.

mindy said...

I also like to document our lives, and for other lives to be documented for me to read and glean from... especially when the documentation is as well written as yours and accompanied by fabulous photos!

Jessica said...

Oh, I so want to go to this musuem at night thing. My dd and I wento to the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston, which (per her will) is exactly the way she wanted it. With a HUGE mural on the ceiling, clearly the way ISG intended it. And should be viewed from lying on the floor imo. Not so the museum guards.