Babies having Babies

So, seems this year is the year of the baby. 

Ted's baby dishes

A group of the nieces and nephews (well, their significant others) are starting or extending their families. It seemed appropriate to come up with an artsy baby gift for the brood.  They are a few years away from  enjoying a painting and luckily I'm married to a potter.  And luckily my husband has his own studio and a great imagination.

Ted embraced the baby challenge (pottery wise) and came up with sets of baby dishes for the little ones. Bright colors and different shapes.

Some of the primary color ones we mixed up. They turned out pretty cool. You can check his work out on Anna Norris Fine Art

I ended up going to Texas to paint a mural for one of the babies. My niece asked for an African Savanna.

Her husband is from Ghana and I had a great time researching terrain, animals and villages for the mural. She wanted something that was more cartoon based and neutral colors. Baby friendly but able to grow with the child.

My niece lives in Livingston Texas and part of the challenge was figuring out what resources for purchasing the paints were there. I found out there was a Lowes and that was perfect. I ended up figuring out colors and amounts of paint here and then picking them up there.

I'm not much of a sketcher. I have the picture in my head and I just start.  Can be a little unsettling for clients that can't read my mind. This piece actually evolved on the wall. At first it was just going to be between two windows. Well you know how that goes. I ended up with two full walls.

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So I realized as I started that I had no idea how to gracefully end the top and bottom of the mural. I didn't want it to feel too formal. The tree/cloud band on the top was informal enough. The bottom was more of a head scratcher. I though a band of Ashanti would be cool and M and D came up with a child's blessing that D translated into Ashanti.  I will attempt to attach the video that pans the room and has D reading the blessing in Ashanti.

Can't wait for the new generation to make their appearances. I know there will be a few painters/potters among them.