With the days left until school starts diminishing, I am now on a quest with my children to quickly finish all of those "fun" activities that we had hoped to do to fill our otherwise boring summer days. I am absolutely amazed that the summer is nearly over. Yes I do realize that it s only the end of the first week of August but when school starts on the 24th of August, the summer really is almost over!
This afternoon we visited The Painted Cone (www.thepaintedcone.com). This place is sheer genius. What an absolutely brilliant concept. One half of the establishment is a pottery painting studio and the other half sells all natural ice cream and coffees. This may sound odd, but it is perfect for birthdays and what a fantastic alternative offering to anyone doing the pottery painting. As I sat there this afternoon I watched as group after group painted and then finished the outing with ice cream. If it were just an ice cream shop or just a pottery place I don't think it would do nearly as well as it does, but the combination works wonderfully.
As I sat there with my children for almost three hours I just watched as they, and all the children there, used their imaginations to create their little pieces of art. Perhaps more fascinating was to watch the parents interaction with the children. Some parents let the kids pick their own colors and create disastrous combinations, but the combinations were uniquely the child's. Others micro managed every line in the attempt to create the perfectly painted piece, even going so far as to replace the colors that the child had chosen with others that they thought "worked" better.
As for us? There were parts we did together and parts they painted on their own. I tried my best to reign in my desire to make sure that every line was filled in and let them just create whatever moved them and as a consequence KC's fairy has a very interesting dress, but the important part is that it is KC's creation not mine. Then when CJ asked me what I thought of his lizard and what would "I" do, although I had a design scheme all laid out in my mind, I refrained and asked him what colors he most liked and encouraged him to just go with those. Yes I do admit that when they were both done I looked the pieces over for any remaining unpainted spots and helped them fill them in but after all, I am still learning too...
