Fiddler On The Roof

We are lucky enough to have a Very Important Person visiting us today - Nana!!  Our house is just one of the stops on her Whirlwind Grandchild Tour, and on her next stop she'll get to meet #11! In addition to getting a fantabulous husband, I also got fantabulous in-laws - and now my kids get a real-life Art Professor for a Nana!  WonderGirl's favorite activity with her Nana is doing art, and today she got a wonderful lesson on the art of Marc Chagall.  And then I talked her into sharing her lesson with US!  Aren't we lucky??  Enjoy!

Mom with a Monet Water lily

On the way to visit WonderGirl, I stopped in the Chicago Art Institute with a friend and was INSPIRED by the beautiful Chagall windows there. Today, WonderGirl wanted to do art with me, and immediately I thought of Marc Chagall who was a Russian Jewish artist who painted about his childhood as dreamlike memories.

• First we played "Tradition" from Fiddler on the Roof, and soaked in that culture and gorgeous violin music (which incidentally sounds like her Uncle playing).

• Then we found Chagall's fiddler, looked at other memories of his childhood, and talked about how they were little bits of memory all mixed up, sideways and upside down, like dreams.

One painting has an X design, so I drew an X on her canvas and asked her to paint four little memories of her early days in Brazil. Here it is!






Reflections on a Brasilian Memory, acrylic paint on paper  2011

What a treat - thank you so much Nana!!!