6/08: I thought about taking down this webpage because, well, what does it have to do with DIY lifestyle tips? But in looking it over again, dang, this is fun stuff! So I’m leaving it up… : )
12/18/06: Henry recently stopped sculpting to obey his mindmelting Gameboy addiction, but then he started back up with the clay again, thankfully. He has lately been making clay versions of Pokemon and playing with them. He comes home from school and we hear the play-noise start up in the side-room.
Apparently the Gameboy demon is willing to share a bit of its victim’s life. Actually, he lost the Gameboy for awhile, too, due to misbehavior–and he didn’t even seem to miss it. Maybe he enjoyed the fresh air of freedom.
Here’s a few up close, plus the overall scene on the table after the kids left for school today:
UPDATE 9/5/06: OK, the deal is that our boy Henry has been making things out of clay in a gungho way since he was 4. There are stories and pics of his work down below. But now he’s almost 9, starting 3rd grade, and this is an update.
He’s started back in on the clay. He’d taken a break to focus on the blue box (a Gameboy mindmelter). Before that he’d been innovating with Lego Bionicles and I’d set up a webpage for him on their fansite—where kids around the world commented on them in their hilarious kid-way [see pic below]. But now he’s back to the clay. He still makes his blasting sounds. He’s moved away from monsters and toward Gameboy-ey creatures. He plays with them in a Gameboy-ey way, too. PS: This summer Henry and Lucy had their first art show booth! They made Shrinky-Dink pins and magnets. They almost sold out! –They bought Gameboy DS’s with their $200 in profits. Sigh. Lucy definitely has her own strong, wild art style and fans. I’ll have to put up pics of her work, too. It’s wonderful and I’ve been remiss to not include it. Anyway, these kids can sell art! –New recruits to the Indy Lifestyle!
Can you guess the 3 pins/magnets that are Lucy’s and the one that’s Henry’s? Lucy rocks, huh! She’s a wild girl!
Cute Bionicles.
A fierce one.
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9/21/06: This morning Henry said, “Hey, check this out, I think you’re going to like it”:
Get it? The top one is a dragon with tentacles exploding up through our coffee table to chomp down some little blue guy (without waking the dog!). The bottom image is what’s UNDER the coffee table—the rest of the dragon!
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4/06: Henry finally made some things that will keep, out of bakeable Sculpy clay. The kids watched an undersea life video that inspired him. The hero of the show was a little octopus who lived in a beer bottle and carried it with him wherever he went. The videographers tried to give him a big fancy ship-in-a-bottle glass. He tried it out but prefered his beer bottle and off he went. The flick also featured these bright, flashing squids. So Henry made a tableau showing all the creatures plus he made a separate bottle-pus and pajama squid.
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INTRO: Our boy spends hours a day making these things then flying them around, feeding, fighting and destroying them. We hear wild sounds and discussions. He runs and jumps, back and forth thru the house, making blasting sounds. It’s good exercise, if unusual. He makes a dozen critters a day. He sometimes adds a freaky sound-effect: it’s a triple-sound, like a Tibetan throat-chant: a buzzing air-sound, a vocal throat sound and a squealing cheek sound like air escaping a balloon.
These creations are pretty darn cool. In fact, I put them up against whoever else you like. I mean, how do we enter some kiddy art contests here. And if anyone out there wants, like, a design scheme executed for a whole line of organic-style, naturally kid-oriented toys, give us a call. The boy might want to do a little work to help buy some food around here.
Henry’s creatures are influenced by bugs, Pokemon, Star Wars, Transformers, books, imagination and tiny fingers, plus anything he can turn into a tool. This kind of clay doesn’t get hard. $4 for 2 pounds at a dimestore or hobbyshop. It starts out as color-chunks but soon turns grey. We’ll try some fireable clay soon. He sold 7 critters at a garage sale for his first art business.
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Update 2/06
I found the following in our bathroom tonight. Scary! Along other lines H recently did the Jabberwocky, Jubjub Bird and Frumious Bandersnatch…
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11/05
This is a series of Moods and the Germs that cause them. Got it? Who knows where the idea came from.
At the bottom is the Crazy Mood and Germ. Next up is the Bored Mood (and Germ). Next up is the Scared Mood—he’s afraid of a rabbit. Sad Mood broke his plate so he’s crying (has a Hammer germ). Happy Mood loves cheese sandwiches. On top is the Angry Mood and Dragon Germ.
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9/05: I saw him perk up when we were talking about lifecycles the other day. So yesterday in a half hour he made these two series: the lefthand one is the lifecycle of the Flying Frog (from egg to tadpole, on up); the righthand is a foodchain of various sea creatures eating each other as they get smaller…
8/05: It seems like he just stepped it up a notch with the critters below. The ‘circular dragon’ looks like jewelry to me or an ancient Celtic icon. The ‘battle scorpion’ is embracing an integrated weapon in, well, a gorgeous way. The spider has, well, the essence of spider (he likes to keep things upside down to not bend their perfectly pointy feet).
He did the 2 cuties, below, when we were at a restaurant (2/05). As we were leaving the table, he was fiddling with the stick and a small ball of clay and the waitress said “Oh, look, he has a ball and a stick.” I said “Show ‘er somethin, laddie.” In maybe 20 sec’s he whipped up a lizard doing a handstand on the stick. The waitress bugged her eyes. When we were going out the door he waved bye to her with his stick which now had these new critters he’d transformed the lizard into. She waved back, slowly. I asked him what they were as we left and he whispered “Squid cat mom and her baby.”
Here’s a Day’s Tray of Clay, 2/10/05 (includes a new area of exploration: blood cells, viruses, bacteria):
He’s starting to work with colors instead of just smushing them into gray. This is an Alien Flytrap… (2/23/05)
