Crumpled Home

Here are some random drawings and pictures that have shown up lately.

Mouse Avenger #12, by RJ

Mouse Avenger is an original series that RJ has been creating. Each has a detailed, full-colour front cover with a series of black and white drawings inside. Most episodes involve battling some kind of dragons and/or scorpions. Mouse Avenger is pretty ruthless with his sword and shield.

The inside of Dad’s birthday card, from LR:

Why yes... Yes it does...

Dad and the kids were doing some drawings on the weekend and they were particularly proud of what they came up with…

Horse and Tree, by LR

Haunted Mansion, by RJ

Haunted Mansion (colour), by RJ and Daddy

Haunted Mansion is a book in the school library that RJ hasn’t read, but seems to know an awful lot about. Those are ghosts chasing the people and I do believe those are severed heads hanging off the legs of the evil crab monster.

LR awoke to a huge pile of presents. Yeah!!!!

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(while eating breakfast)

RJ: I drew a great picture at school yesterday.

Dad: What was it?

RJ: A picture of a baby tennis racket still inside its egg… It was on fire and its eyes and mouth were sewn shut.

Dad: Cool. I didn’t know tennis rackets grew from eggs.

RJ: Yep! … You know, grown up tennis rackets live around rivers. They bury their eggs in big nests and stay around until they hatch. They stand guard to keep them safe from predators.

Dad: What kind of predators eat tennis rackets?

RJ: Wild strawberries!

For most of the month of March, a massively diverse array of sculptures are set up on one of the beaches near our house. We go almost every year!

The kids had several trips down there, one with school and a couple with the family. It’s fun seeing some of the the bizarre creations that have been put up.

LR and RJ explore the two sides of a giant steel structure... vaguely reminiscent of a steam engine.

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(while doing an art project)

RJ: Do you like mine? It’s a, “Vein Ship!”

Dad: So what can it do?

RJ: It’s full of blood and it can shoot veins and blood out of its guns. It’s great for attacking pirates.

Dad: The pirates hate blood?

RJ: Yeah! When the veins from the vein ship get on the pirates, their ship changes, and then it turns into a vein ship too. It’s really bad.

Dad: What else can it do?

RJ: It has a Cottelator 2-1000.

Dad: Whoah. That sounds dangerous.

RJ: It is. When you shoot pirates with it, it makes them cough.

Every night for the past six weeks, RJ has been telling us about his upcoming art gallery. We could tell it was a big deal, but we had no idea of the actual scale of the thing.

Rather than being five or six paintings that the kids had done, the gallery consisted of about 20 pieces for each child. Each piece focused on a different artistic style, technique or influence by a famous significant artist. Every inch of wall space was covered and several extra partitions were required to accommodate everything. Even the neighbouring classroom was annexed to become the food / wine / snack room!

RJ was excited to have all the important people there… Mum, Dad, LR, Grammy and even Heather and her mum came down. Poppa couldn’t make it because he was overseas.

Thanks so much to RJ’s teachers for all the effort and energy they put into this. It really was quite overwhelming and far beyond anything we expected – a fantastic job all around!

Welcome to RJ's Art Gallery!

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I’m feeling pretty nervous today! Tonight is the opening night of the PCP Iris Award Exhibition… and I’m in it!

Two weeks ago I received a phone call letting me know that I was a finalist for the Iris Award for Contemporary Portraiture. It’s run by the Perth Centre for Photography, a local organisation promoting photography and emerging talent. It’s a huge deal for me, because it’s judged by both professional photographers and artists with a strong grounding in contemporary photography and art history.

It doesn’t help that I’ve seen some of the other finalists (and rejected entries) and they were just awesome.

All I can say is,  “I’m not worthy!” and, “They Like Me, They Really Like Me!!!”.

Barn Unfinished Breakfast : My entry for the Perth Centre for Photography Iris Award for Contemporary Portraiture... What a mouthful!

The secret of my success? Having really cute kids and taking way more photos than any human being should reasonably be allowed to.

Seriously, if there was a tax on megapixels the IRS and ATO would be hunting me down.

I’d been meaning to get a picture of this for a while, but hadn’t gotten to it yet. This is a sign that LR put up on her door about six months ago, letting everyone know that they’re welcome to come in.

A robot welcomes everyone who comes to LR's bedroom door. Proud father? Oh yes, indeed.

That’s a robot that’s she’s drawn (from scratch) on there… It’s because of things like this that I can look past the all the other fluffy pink stuff around the place.

Fairies? Magic ponies? Ridiculous nonsense! Humanoid robot servitors? Now that’s much more respectable.

Here’s a smattering of pictures from the first half of the month: RJ’s sudden fascination with Superman, a visit to K and J’s place, trips to Gingin, lots of tree climbing, legos, marbles and painting, oh my!

Compared to his obsession with dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures, RJ’s interest in Superman is fairly mild. You’re more likely to catch him pretending to be biologist Nigel Marven.

Don't fear, Superman is on the way.

RJ and I made some Superman badges. I told him, "We don't need no steenkin badges!" but he just wouldn't listen.

K and J’s have an amazing treehouse. It’s multi-level, and is outfitted with a flying-fox, a giant tyre swing, a climbing wall and harnesses and attachment points for everything.

LR and K ride the tyre swing to pretty amazing heights.

LR tackles the climbing wall at K's place.

RJ and J discuss some of the problems they've been having at home.

LR’s tree has grown into one of the best climbing trees imaginable – kid capacity, 15. We’ll find out for sure at this year’s Halloween party.

RJ and LR found an egg shell under LR's tree. Does that mean there's a nest up there somewhere? They've searched all the lower branches and haven't spotted it yet, so maybe not.

RJ climbs up without assistance these days. The monkey genes... they run deep.

Some other recent moments…

Sometimes he just has to yell it out. Negotiating with a hungry three year old who needs a nap is not always possible.

LR tries out Dad's camera while RJ attempts to escape.

LR and RJ worked on this massive castle project. We still haven't managed to use every piece of lego yet.

RJ and Mum adjust their complicated marble run and sling marbles all around the room.

LR adding some details to her big canvas, "The Planet System". It depicts an asteroid crashing into a prehistoric volcanic landscape leading to the collapse of the dinosaur populations on Earth.

In the art gallery, in front of a giant (5×3 metres – 17×10 ft) Aboriginal painting.

LR: I see the problem. My paintings have all been too small.

A few minutes later…

LR: Mum, I think that I can’t paint very well because I have the wrong brushes and paints. You’ve only given me kid stuff. Let’s go to the shop and get real artists’ paints and brushes and a big canvas.

At the art shop, faced with a wall of colours (each $7).

Mum: Uh-oh. How are we going to figure out which ones you need?
Art Shop Lady: That’s okay. Get a colour wheel. Just buy the primary colours and white and black and you can make any colour.
Mum: Great!
LR: What’s a primary colour?
Art Shop Lady: It’s a colour that you can’t make from any other colours. Red, yellow and blue are the primary colours.
LR: How do you make red?
Art Shop Lady: You use chemicals.
LR: How did they make the first red?
Art Shop Lady: Umm…I don’t know. (calls over another lady)
Art Shop Lady 2: Well, you can use iron oxides or berries to make different shades of red. Or cochineal from beetles.
LR: Oh. But how did that red get made?
Mum: (stepping in at the looks on the ladies’ faces) That’s a good question. Let’s look that up. Or we’ll ask Grammie. She knows everything about art. (That’s called passing the buck)

As LR and Mum are leaving the shop, the first lady comes over, puts her hand on Mum’s shoulder and says “You poor thing.”