revelation: fragrance of nature

Can there be anything more inspiring than the change of Seasons? In Michigan we enjoy beautiful Spring flowers. The trees are budding, the flowers are up, the birds are singing, the days are getting longer, and beauty is all around us! We have lily of the valley by our back door. You can smell it as you go in and out. It's a real treat this time of year. We have lilacs by the back door, and later we will have lavender by the front door. I really love to have fragrant flowers near the entrances. I love the reminder to slow down and notice the changing flowers as I come and go throughout the day. I enjoy painting flowers, some of the joy of flowers is the smell. It's hard to look at a photo or painting and not be reminded of the beautiful smell. It's important to enjoy the world with all of our senses, and to bring that to our artwork.

Wonderment: smelling your art

After thinking about the need to color, I wanted to make a conscious effort today to notice what other very basic things my students choose to do.  I've been telling my family lately about a little 5 year old in one of my classes that likes to sit right right by my legs during group time.  He gets his little nose right up to my knees so he can smell them :)  He likes the smell of my lotion.  What can I say?  He is working on backing up a little... Kindergarteners don't really know their social bounderies yet!
He got me noticing how important smell must be to my art students.  Today there was a small group of 1st graders rummaging through our crayon cakes together to see which one they liked the smell of the best. (I don't think they smell at all.)  I saw 5th graders going through the magazines looking for the perfume ads to rub the smell on their project- now, I thought that was a pretty cool idea!  My students pretty much put everything up to their nose and take a whiff.  Many of them aquire marker or chalk marks on the ends of their noses at some point during class.  Mr. Sketchy markers are made with fruity smells.  I used to have a lot of them, but I got rid of them because I was constantly telling children to go wash their nose.  I do love those markers however!  I don't blame them for wanting to smell them, they smell wonderful!
Art and wonderful smells just go together.  I used oil paint when I was in college, and the smell is such a great memory for me.  Someday I'm sure I will go back to oils.  In elementary school we used to use paste, don't some of you from my generation just love that smell!  and, of course there is that kid in every class who doesn't just smell it, they have to eat it!  Gross! (but I bet you have all snuck a taste of some kind of glue or paint :) Taste is a whole 'nother topic...