big drawings

this is the latest fav activity, drawing on the floor ala lola (of charlie and lola fame).

i've got this big plastic tablecloth fabric remanant from spotlight (chilli varieties all over it so not bad) which we use on the dining table for indoor painting etc. and big architectural drawing pages from daddy's work. sometimes they ask me to draw a basic picture which they colour and add to, sometimes its mad scribbling. H loves to use lots of colours, S likes a nice sharp lead pencil.

i made them some pencil rolls, my first ones and made them up as i went along. the inside is felt and the outside are fabric remnants from spotlight. so they're a bit wonky. i've since made myself a rather gorgeous knitting needle roll. i'll have to photograph it another time. i love these pencil rolls. we take them and a few drawing books to the park and draw each other and the trees, flowers, birds, swings. it makes a break from the play equipment and extends our park visit to an hour or so.

we have a great park that we can walk to from home, via a shortcut thru a "jungle" and along a "creek" (an overgrown track running between back fences and a stormwater runoff). we make the trek a few mornings a week now that it's spring, in summer it's too hot be walking back at 11am so it becomes an afternoon walk then. and yesterday we found a huge mulberry tree and picked a container full of nearly ripe mulberries. i lightly stewed them with a bit of sugar and the kids had them with custard after dinner last night. they looked so gorgeously red in the yellow custard. we're heading back to the tree later this week as the fruit is just starting to ripen, so hopefully we can beat the birds to some more. i haven't had mulberries for years, they were amazing.