SHAPES #149

Happy New Year, friends!

Welcome to the CREATE A CHARACTER blog, where you can download a monthly activity sheet for your family! Since this creativity exercise will be 10 years old this year (June!), I’ve redesigned the logo and monthly activity sheet!

These two characters represent how this activity began: me (a parent) drawing characters with my kids nearly every week.

Even though we were working with the same shapes, our individual designs were always different! Which was the best part! The CREATE A CHARACTER Activity celebrates creativity, originality and the safe, supportive spaces ideas are shared in.

I hope you’ll create characters with your child (and me!) this month! Download Activity sheet #149 here. Check back on Friday, January 26th, to learn where these shapes came from! I’ll be sharing my results too! Send your completed sheet my way by Monday, January 22nd if you’d like to be included in my RESULTS post. Until then, Happy Creating!

RESULTS #148

Welcome!

Thank you for stopping by today. If you celebrate Christmas, I hope you had a delightful weekend. Did you squeeze in some character creating with your child this month? If so, I hope you enjoyed the experience!

It was a busy month for us. Our family was on the go after Christmas, so I sketched designs…on the road! I experimented with this month’s activity using Procreate (which I’m still learning!).

Before characters are revealed, let’s talk about inspiration. If you are new to the CREATE A CHARACTER blog, I’ve been pulling shapes from our summer trip to France since September. I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about our stops along the way! Next month, I’m moving on to a new source of inspiration and can’t wait to share that experience with you (newsletter subscribers learned about it this month).

Scroll through the images to spot shapes from this month’s activity sheet…

TOP LEFT: A ceramic store in Montmartre, TOP RIGHT: an accordian player and his cat! BOTTOM LEFT: a purse from the Christian Dior Gallery display, BOTTOM RIGHT: Stained glass windows from The Church of Saint Joan of Arc in Rouen.

Here is a before and after look at my Activity sheet…

My theme was “Anything goes!”

My first shape is…a small DOG.

Shape 2 is…a pink CAT.

Shape 3 is…a white-beaked BIRD.

And Shape 4 is a….I’m not sure! What does this creature look like to you?

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you had fun creating characters this month. Check back on January 8th, to download Activity sheet #149.

Until then, keep creating together!

RESULTS #147

Welcome to RESULTS DAY!

If you’re new to the CREATE A CHARACTER Activity, shapes from September - November’s sheets originated from our family trip to France this summer.

We soaked up as much as we possibly could in Paris. Every day we walked/took the metro to at least 2-3 major sites. The shapes from Activity sheet #147 came from objects/places we saw during the first few days of our trip. Let’s take a closer look…

Top left: I enjoyed our “Le petit déjeuner” (petite breakfast) each morning. My very favorite part was the miniature wrapped sugar cubes I used in my coffee. It was a refreshing break from the loose sugar I would normally add to my mug at home! Top right: Arc de Triomphe. Lower left: brick wall from our hotel. Lower right: 18th century painting in the Louvre by Jacques-Louis David titled, Madame de Verninac.

This is what my Activity sheet looked like before and after my designs…

Can you tell what my theme was?

Turtlenecks!

When I looked at the first shape it made me think of someone trying to pull down a tall turtleneck sweater. So, that became my approach for the remaining shapes! This was the question I asked myself before each sketch: What kind of turtleneck-wearing character can I create from this shape? Let’s take a closer look at Shape 1. Click on the image to see my design…

Shape 2…

Shape 3…

And Shape 4. This one was tough! I experimented with two designs and thought the last one looked much better. Which one is your favorite?

I hope you enjoyed this month’s Activity sheet! Download a new set of shapes on Monday, December 4th. Happy Creating!

RESULTS #146

Welcome to Results Day! Did you create characters with your child this month? If so, I hope it fostered a few fun conversations and lots of connection.

Let’s begin with inspiration. My favorite part! Last month you learned about our big summer trip to France. I pulled shapes from our first stop, Annecy, in last month’s Activity sheet.

This month, the shape collecting continues with the next leg of our trip…Paris! We took a train from Annecy to Paris (just under 4 hours) and arrived on a cool but sunny, Sunday afternoon. We used our Paris Pass for the first time on this popular attraction…the Eiffel Tower!

Clockwise from top left: Eiffel Tower, view from the 2nd Level: Champ-de-Mars Arena (where the 2024 Paris Olympics will be!), pattern from a quilt in our hotel room, a Haussmann style building (popular type of architecture in Paris)

This month I waited until the last week to create characters! You’ll find out where most of my time went on November 1st, if you follow me on Instagram. Just pencil sketches to share today.

These shapes were tough! Do you agree? I began with the 1st one, which looked like the top view of a person flying. It reminded me of Wendy in Peter Pan, when the kids traveled to Neverland. Click the image below to see my sketch…

I wondered if I could use “flying” as my theme for the rest of the characters. I tried to apply that approach to the other shapes…but, it just didn’t work out.

So, I kept trying. The discovery I made during that exploration was thinking about parts of the sky, instead. Maybe these characters could be dressed up in sky-inspired Halloween costumes? After that, the rest of my characters came together. Check out my UFO character below…

I know. That one was a stretch. But, this activity is all about having fun and not getting hung up on ideas that aren’t perfect. I do adore the next characters though! These three siblings are dressed up like a…cumulous cloud for Halloween!

I changed the shape quite a bit for that costume to work! Which is absolutely okay!

I’ll give you a few clues on my last costume. It is something in the sky that is warm, bright and helps us form vitamin D3!

The sun!

Did you enjoy this month’s characters? Were you able to come up with a theme to tie all of your designs in? Or did they not relate at all? There is no right way to create characters with this activity!

Thanks again for stopping by, friends! A new Activity sheet will be available to download on Monday, November 6th. Until then, keep creating!

SHAPES #146

Happy October 2nd!

A new batch of shapes are ready for you and your child to draw on! Use pencils, crayons, markers or any other fun medium and create characters (along with me!) this month. If you’d like your designs to be included in my RESULTS post, send your completed Activity sheet to me by Monday, October 23rd. Check back on Friday, October 27th, to learn where these shapes came from!

Download Activity #146 here.

Happy Creating!