The surface of ye olde blogge has been rather still lately, but there is much busy-ness just below. Soon enough, I'll be able to show off some new, nifty stuff of my own, but in the meantime, I thought I'd take a minute to wax poetic about some things that have been knocking my socks off lately.
We bought Doodles at Lunch: 36 Tear-Off Placemats
after flipping through it for about, oh, 10 seconds. Remember Ed Emberly books? You know, where you drew about 100 different animals all from your thumbprint? Those were the tops when I was growing up. But, well, Ed...move over because Deborah Zemke's 36 doodles knock the old Emberly way outta the park. What I love about these suggested doodles—aside from the fact that they achieve remarkable realism with a minimum of drawing, breaking each doodle into its fundamental shapes—is that each doodle is built from a letter of the alphabet (or a number, thus 36 doodles, rather than 26), AND the letter of the alphabet that is the basis for the drawing is also the first letter of the item being drawn. My favorites: The sideways E's that make the feet of the Elephant and the two lowercase N's that make the head and body of the Newt. My son and I spent well over an hour one afternoon drawing and re-drawing these doodles. He opted for markers, while I chose my favorite black Staedtler pen and watercolor pencils. Rather than drawing on the pages themselves, which are intended to be pulled out and used as placemats, we each worked on our own large sheet of paper so that we can practice these doodles over and over. We were both very happy with our work—for someone who designs constantly in spite of significant insecurity about drawing, I found this really satisfying. I plan to track down some of her other titles for even more fun.
In the same vein, I recently bought my son this Crayola Activity Center. I usually shy away from buying pre-made kits and large plastic objects, but this is a very nice, self-contained, re-usable toy. Using low-odor dry-erase markers (as well as wax crayons that I purchased separately), this is basically a giant picture frame in which you can slide various pages of letter practice, games, or even blank pages. The kiddo writes on the clear plastic and then wipes it away when he's ready to start over. I tried to make something similar to this for a recent car trip, but my version, unfortunately differed from this one in that it did not work. So kudos, Crayola, for perfecting my good idea.
I'm also spending unhealthy bits of time on Pinterest lately. Have you been there? It's an incredibly simple way to curate and browse lists of beautiful, interesting things. Somewhere between an inspiration board and a clipping file, mixed with the social interaction of twitter. Most people I'm following seem to be using it to curate lists of home decor ideas and inspiration, but you could also use it to keep track of recipes you want to try, articles or books you recommend, or just your favorite zigzags—the sky's the limit, really. It's in beta right now, so you have to request an invitation and wait a bit if you want to join (I only had to wait a day or so), or if you check it out and can't wait another minute, I have four invitations available. If you want one, let me know in the comments, and just make sure to give me your email address (it's hidden from everyone but me).
What are you loving lately? What have I been missing?
Wednesday, August 4, 2010 at 6:58AM
Reader Comments (2)
I'm one of the founders of Pinterest. Thanks so much for the post, and happy to hear you're enjoying the site.
If you ever have questions, comments or suggestions, drop me a note at paul [at] pinterest [dot] com. Would be great to hear from you.
Happy pinning!
I love the doodle books :) I have a very artistic 6 year old niece that just may love one of those books. The pinterest place looked neat. I don't think I'd use it too much right now, so I'll wait until they open up to the public.
Kristin - The Goat