laratheescapeartist

Messing around in the ‘studio’ with my daughter

In September 2018 we demolished our old asbestos ridden garage and turned it into a new half bikes & gardening stuff storage space half art studio for myself and our daughters.

The old garage- so ugly the former owners covered it in wood to try to disguise it

The old garage from the side- again covered in wood so you could pretend it wasn't there — The old garage- so ugly the former owners covered it in wood to try to disguise it

Peach at 16 months old is a bit too young yet to do any painting, but because of the bonus half term week that Plum has had off school due to coronavirus we’ve been able to go into the ‘studio’ a lot together. I’d like to say this was relaxing and fun, and sometimes it is if she really get’s into doing her own thing, but I’m not sure creating art and doing childcare are activities that can be combined. I think until she’s older I’m just going to have to work on projects with her rather than try to create something of my own alongside her as I just can’t get into the zone otherwise and we both end up frustrated.

I tried working on a project idea to turn one of my dads Lake District photos into a painting (it’s obviously difficult to see my parents at the moment as we cannot travel to the UK with the coronavirus restrictions and I was hoping this would be a way to feel close to them and all the walks they do) but I need to redo it without Plum there to mix up all the acrylic paint colours!

My dad's photo of the Lake District — My dad’s photo of the Lake District

Ink and watercolour sketch — My dad’s photo of the Lake District

Collage

My five year old and I made a collage of a select few of her artworks (I serruptitiously binned the rest otherwise our house would be knee deep in her drawings within a few years) . I think my favourite period of her work so far is the way she drew people at age three with the exaggerated eyelashes and fingers.

Clock change

Now that I have two small children I hate the winter clock change with a passion. This year it has taken more than two weeks for Peach (the youngest, 16 months) to wake up past 6 a.m..

Twins birthday gift

For privacy I haven’t included the final image, but I edited my drawing on the computer so that the twins names and date of birth were written on the tree trunk. And voila! a (only slightly!) belated birthday gift for my friend’s daughters.

Trying to concentrate but..

At the moment I have no idea how long I have before one of us gets sick, someone in our bubble gets sick and we have to quarantine, or Belgium goes into full on lockdown mode again and we have no more help with childcare.

Sketch a day

My new year’s resolution was to draw a sketch a day in my diary of something that had happened during that day. During lockdown it was one of the few things that helped to keep me sane, and it’s been a really nice way of recording our second daughters progress.

For my daughter on her first birthday

Finished this only 3 months too late! Did it as a series of pictures around her full name, one for each month of the year plus one on the day she was born.

Airpods

Also airpods always remind me of this article https://www.vice.com/en/article/neaz3d/airpods-are-a-tragedy so its a doubly annoying situation.

Wear a mask

My hypochondria anxiety levels have been going through the roof over the past 6 months as presumably so have everybody’s. I’m feeling better right now, but during April/May I felt quite breathless a lot of the time – no idea if I had a really mild case of Covid or if it was all in my head. Wearing a mask and taking care with social distancing and meeting friends outside helps with my anxiety about the whole situation.

A wedding

My brother is getting married in London next weekend and sadly because of coronavirus restrictions we can’t be there to celebrate with them. I’ve drawn him this picture as a wedding gift (yes they got a lockdown puppy- a super cute border terrier called Siggy who I’m also sad I’ve not yet gotten to meet! And the cat is called Hero).