Painting with our children.
merging
One day, finding it hard to paint in the studio our 2 and 3 year old, eager to have a go. I decided to loosen the control over my canvases, and let them join me! After all, I like to work in ways where I have less control over what I am doing, allowing chance and the environment to play a part, it made sense to let our children collaborate. The three of us started to paint in oil on a large canvas! They really loved it! Though children’s attention span is shorter then ours, not much but a little! so when our son started to paint his legs I had to stop! There is still oil paint on the clothes they wore that day! The marks they made had a certain quality that my marks don’t have, a total lack of self-consciousness, which I love. I then continued to paint around their marks and incorporating them as a whole into the painting. It felt very special to paint together, Mother and children, maybe the next time James could paint too, so it would be a painting by the whole family! The painting is now hanging in the Secret Gallery!
The secret gallery's blog 
Great to see you involving the kiddies. They must be having fun. How lucky for them to have a mother like you, Marianne. Its all ‘Hands on’
Eleanor
10 August, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Marianne I don’t know what to say. I am completely bowled over by your serene, illuminating paintings. ‘Open your heart then open it some more’ soars like some vibrating higher being chanting pujas on a magic carpet. ‘Merging’ makes my eyes water. It looks like how it feels to look at your other paintings. Your children have been paying attention to their mother. Congratulations to all.
Love and wet blinks,
Guantanamera
Polly
13 August, 2008 at 9:54 pm