Isabelle Art

On the left we have Isabelle's most recent Totoro drawing. On the right we have the one she made back in June. The earlier one actually looks a little more like Totoro, with the little eyes and the big belly and whiskers. But the previous toothy mouth was just a jagged line, and the new one is a full mouth with teeth. I like the energy of the new one, too, it seems it could just jump off the page.

Isabelle hasn't watched Totoro in a while, which may explain why her newest one less resembles the movie character, but I thought the comparisom nice to display the evoluntion of her style. In both pictures you see the Totoro has filled the paper, a good skill for a preschooler Isabelle came to naturally. The new one shows her "head with arms and legs" rendering, which in the case of Totoro, might be more accurately termed "body with a little face" (as in the older one).

In her new Totoro, Isabelle has used circles not only for the obvious: head, eyes, nostrils, and hands, but also for feet, toes, and fingers. These could represent totoro's claws, but I think rather this is a large portrait, and the circles are to show that fingers have dimension mere lines don't suggest. I think they are just "ends of the fingers" and toes.

Isabelle Art

Here's a sample of Isabelle's latest drawings:

My Family

Isabelle H R Wightman

crayon

10/15/2007

Ghost

Isabelle H R Wightman

pen and paper

9/16/2007

I like the expressive face in ghost. In her family portrait, it is Isabelle on on the left, Dad in the middle, and Mommy on the right. The enormous red dots are, I believe, navels. I also find in interesting that Isabelle doesn't do the traditional stick figure. She has often done faces with arms and legs, rather like the ghost. In family she seems to be expanding the concept of circles from a single circle to represent head and torso to a pair of circles. That the legs on Dad start in his head suggests her slowly adding on the concept of a separate circle for the body.

One of the first (really representational) things Isabelle drew was a sun, which looks a lot like it does now in the family portrait. You can see the echo of this sun in the hands, particularly the ghost's hands, with its generous allotment of fingers. She is expanding off this circle-with-lines to represent many other objects.

Drink and be Merry

Okay, this has nothing to do with being a dad. Unless of course your the dad of a very grouchy girl who is crying because she's cold because she refused to get out of the bathtub until all the water had gone down, while your wife is asking you worried questions about the budget and could you please take out the compost, it stinks like a... compost heap in here.

My first orginal drink recipe:

Old Vermonter

• 1&1/2 oz bourbon
• 1/2 oz maple syrup
• 1/2 oz applejack
• 1/4 tsp lemon juice

Combine in a shaker, serve over ice in an old fashioned glass. If desired, garnish with a moose antler.

Cheers!

(PS. arguably, an Old Vermonter should be made with Canadian whiskey, Vermont being closer to Canada than Kentucky, but I've never tried it. If someone tries it with Canadian and has an opinion, let me know!)

Isabelle's Fourth Birthday

More than a blogging Daddy can resist. The party was an orgy of toys and clothes. Isabelle had been looking forward to it since October 2nd 2006. She was in a frenzy of excitement for 3 days, and it took her 2 days to recover. A smashing success. She loved everything she got, but there was one present that stood out, one present that she had wanted beyond all others, that her parents couldn't get, and didn't believe anyone could get for her. But her cousins, Allison and Benjamin, with the help of her aunt and uncle, struck gold. Witness the following video: