Family Day at the Art Institute

We spent the middle of our day today at the Art Institute.  This is the second time we’ve been to Family Day there, and I must say, both times have been spectacular fun.  Today we made prints, sculpted with clay, created yarn collages and mosaics, folded paper flowers, made masks, and best of all:  tried out the pottery wheel.  There has been fascination with the pottery wheel around here for quite some time, especially since our neighbor is a pottery artist and Mr. Sneaky Pants helped him fire a pot in his outdoor kiln in the backyard.  We were very excited to try out the pottery wheel.  Actually, Mr. Sneaky Pants was devastatingly upset he didn’t get to try because we ran out of time before Family Day was over, but Ya Ya and her friend from the top of the hill both did get to try it out.

The man helping Ya Ya with the pottery wheel in the images is Fred.  He’s extremely kind with children and did such a good job explaining to Ya Ya how to make the pot.

Now we have a beautiful clay bowl, which is still drying.  We also did some sculpting with clay. Mr. Sneaky Pants made a dragon and a cave.  The Banana did some amazing abstract sculpting.  Ya Ya’s friend made a chair and footstool, and Ya Ya made some silly people:

I love the clay.  When I was a little girl my Grandma Jan had clay like this, and she’d let me play with it.  My favorite sculpture was a bunkbed.  I used toothpicks and clay to make it.  I gave it to Trevor Flanders for his birthday present because I was convinced I was going to marry that guy, but then I knocked his teeth out with my tricycle in a nasty crash on the porch, and that was the end of that notion.

Anyway, the man I did marry, Dr. Peds, is excellent at creating yarn collages. He made a swirly collage that looks just like a rug from 1970.  I didn’t get a picture of that.  I did get a picture of his second piece of yarn art, which is also abstract and hilarious:

I call it “The Glump,” and I have plans on where to display it when it finally dries.  After he finished that he made a coffee cup, which I am encouraging him to take to work. No one else in the building thought to make a coffee cup.

Mr. SP was extremely excited about this mask.  He loves masks, and has big plans for using this with a costume.  We even put elastic on the back so he can wear it without holding it in place.

Squirmy spent the whole time napping in the Moby wrap.  The reason I never have pictures of him is that he’s always eating,  sleeping in the moby wrap, or distressed and upset and not in the mood for a picture as I desperately try to calm him down. (He is getting more content, though).