Happy Birthday Grandma Moses!

Grandma Moses is an amazing inspiration to those of us who aren't getting the chance to paint as much as we'd like to or to pursue other interests at this stage of our lives. She didn't even start painting seriously until she was in her late 70s! And was still painting at age 100! So it's never too late to teach an old dog new tricks :) And never too late to make a dream come true.

Anna Mary Robertson was born on Sept 7th in 1860 and lived to be 101. She was born to a family with 10 kids and then had 10 kids of her own! Bless her heart. She turned to painting because somehow she still had energy left after raising her brood and the needlework she had enjoyed became too hard on her aging hands. Despite the late start, she has now become probably the most beloved American folk artist. Amazing.

Here are a couple of my favorites of her paintings:

County Fair

Sugaring Off

Here's a link to a YouTube video that is a slideshow of tons of her paintings. With some good ol' American music to go along with it.

When I taught her at an art camp a couple years ago, we folded a sheet of cardstock in half (hamburger style) to make a greeting card. I had the kids pick their favorite holiday, talked a little about family traditions and had them draw a picture with colored pencils of what their family would be doing on that holiday. They loved it! I think Grandma Moses is great for kids because she's not intimidating. They look at her paintings and feel confident they can do it too. And everybody loves holidays! One of my daughters kept doing extra cards she loved her so much. I did instruct the kids to fill the entire space. We looked at some of her paintings and showed how she did it, and how she had so many different fun things going on. We talked briefly about helping things look like they're in the background by overlapping and then I told them not to worry about it all being perfect but to just let it tell a story. And to have fun as always!

Here's another great Grandma Moses project idea about the four seasons at Harrington Harmonies. I might give it a try this year!