The joy of cut and paste

My reconstruction of a drawing by Mica Angela Hendricks and her daughter.

Lucky is the child with an artistic mother. My favorite moments with my mother all seem to have to do with creating. One of the projects I remember best as a very young child was a huge scrapbook with illustrations and photos of every kind pasted into it. This was meant to keep me amused by looking at it, but really, it was a way to keep my mother amused. She adored cutting pictures out of magazines and tucking them away to be pasted into a book later.

She had a background as an occupational therapist, and perhaps this was an activity that she used in therapy with the wounded World War II veterans she encountered in her work after the war. These skills came in handy when raising children, particularly one born with an itch to create. Early on, I picked up the scissors and paste and started doing my own versions. They are a wonderful walk through the years, observing the changes in style and illustration. We loved images together.

I would like to introduce another very lucky kid–the daughter of illustrator Mica Angela Hendricks. Mica has a wonderful blog called “The Busy Mockingbird”, and gives examples of how she lets her four-year-old daughter embellish and finish illustrations that she has started. They are crazy and delightful. Her blog post this morning shared one of these as an invitation to use it to cut and paste. I did my own version (see above) and had a wonderful time cutting and pasting away. It was great therapy and served to jump-start my creative battery for the day.

Get your own at Mica’s blog site: http://busymockingbird.com/2013/09/25/the-lizard-guy-project/ and share it with her if you can.

Here is Mica’s justifiably popular post about collaborating with her daughter: http://busymockingbird.com/2013/08/27/collaborating-with-a-4-year-old/

Happy cutting and pasting! And remember, especially if you’re an artist, it’s fun to share!