'Side by Side' is the philosophy of BIG Kids Magazine to feature the work of kids and artists on the same page, disrupting hierarchies and provoking new ways of seeing.
Twyla and I often work side by side collaborating seriously on images, or singing and making playful marks on a shared page. We don't usually decide what we are going to draw although very often we create some kind of figures or characters that can inhabit the stories we make up. Often the beautiful traces of our paintings end up being lost underneath the sudden fall of night and a whole page covered in black paint, or someone's hair grown so long that it covers up everything that has come before. Other times I whisk the work away while the characters are still visible and we begin a second and third piece continuing a meandering story line or dipping in to make believe tales of long lost brothers and ogre's from bad dreams.
Twyla and I often work side by side collaborating seriously on images, or singing and making playful marks on a shared page. We don't usually decide what we are going to draw although very often we create some kind of figures or characters that can inhabit the stories we make up. Often the beautiful traces of our paintings end up being lost underneath the sudden fall of night and a whole page covered in black paint, or someone's hair grown so long that it covers up everything that has come before. Other times I whisk the work away while the characters are still visible and we begin a second and third piece continuing a meandering story line or dipping in to make believe tales of long lost brothers and ogre's from bad dreams.
If you would like to try collaborating with your child you could try the following to get you started:
- Draw a circle for a head and invite your child to draw the face. Talk about ears and eye brows and hair, hats and bow ties, wrinkles and ear rings and rosy cheeks.
- Draw the body slowly so your child has time to jump in and add arms or legs.
- Concentrate on details like patterns on shoes or clothing that your child might like to extend or design in their own way.
I love finding ways to say 'yes' to all the marks that Twyla makes on our shared page rather than trying to direct or curb her impulses. We have been collaborating on work since she first held a paintbrush and have a shared vocabulary now that has accumulated between us.
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| Hopscotch Character in response to Game On! By Lilly Blue and Twyla, age 3 |
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| Mother and Child By Lilly Blue and Twyla, age 3 |
