resting, turkeys, and foil art

Our days this past week have mostly been about decompressing from the holidays...and for Eliza, getting through a cold.  Mostly easy, peaceful days filled with an unbelievable number of stories.

Miss Bright Eyes still goes a mile a minute and one day she came down looking like this beautiful fairy child, ready to go to the store with me.  In the store she turned to tell me, "I put on my clothes" (I should say we've had many pajama days lately) "I put on my clothes, put a flower in my hair and it made all the difference!"  Oh Ani, I will have to remember that.

Scrambled States of America

We got out to Turtle Hill on Tuesday, since homeschool coop hasn't yet started up.  The turkeys are huge and fascinating.

I went inside their enclosure, once Jen assured me that they are all show, and that cheeky lass in the foreground came right up to me and pecked my camera!  What I wanted was a close shot of the Tom, with his crazy handsome snood and astounding head.

I mean, what????

It was so beautiful out there, with the sunshine and a little snow still around.  We'd all had rough days the day before and thought maybe we'd do a little hiking and art together, and see if that helped! Of course it did...

We set about making foil pictures, for lack of a better thing to call them!  On a piece of cardboard you draw your picture, using simple lines.  Trace over these with glue, not worrying about detail, but focusing on the strong lines of your image.

These had to dry overnight, so we brought ours home to finish today.  We had a trip to the library this morning, friends for lunch, and the first choir of the winter (it was big, raucous and awesome!), but finally this evening we spread glue over the non-glued areas of our drawings and wrapped a piece of foil around the whole thing.  This we smoothed down carefully, first with our fingers and then with the eraser end of a pencil (their family used Q-tips, but we didn't have any).  You are trying to emphasize the edges of the hardened glue lines, molding the foil to them.

Then, with a blunt pen cap (you could use a dull pencil or something else that will draw but has no sharp edge to it), we drew in detail - patterns on the hills in Ani's picture, plants in the pots on Eliza's, squiggles and lines on my small sun.

Then...Scuff Magic.  I have no idea how old this stuff is - it's been in Dan's shoe box for years and years, several bottles of it.  Basically, you want shoe polish that hasn't dried up!  Spread it over your piece and let it dry for a bit.  Then, carefully wipe most of it off, leaving what remains in the lines.  I think they look beautiful and old...

Couldn't you imagine making pirate dubloons or some antique-looking medallions with this process?

Restored by friends, nature, and art, today was much better.