The Artful Year – Interview and Book Give Away
I’ve followed a lot of blogs and bloggers over the years, and one of my long time favourites, who manages to combine information and inspiration with beautiful images and a hefty dose of real life is, Jean Van’t Hul from The Artful Parent.
Today I have a special treat, I’ve asked Jean to answer a few questions and give us a little glimpse into her life and her latest, lovely, book – The Artful Year!
Kate: Tell us a little about yourself and your family.
Jean: Sure! I guess you could say I’m a mama on a mission. I am passionate about art as an avenue for creativity, especially for children. I do my best to raise my own kids in an art-rich environment and I like to think of myself as an art enabler. My daughters and their friends are generally quite willing. I’ve been sharing our journey, ideas, and activities, for years, on my blog The Artful Parent, as well as in magazine articles and books.
While my ultimate goal is to foster children’s creativity through art, I do so primarily by sharing with adults. I aim to inspire, motivate, and educate parents, teachers, and caregivers to make art more of a priority with the kids in their lives. It’s one of the reasons I focus my writing on easy and fun arts and crafts as well as creative play ideas.
Kate: What led you to write The Artful Year?
Jean: Oh, I absolutely love celebrating the changes around the year with my family! And that includes the seasonal changes in nature, our various cultural traditions through the seasons, and of course the holidays. But first I created four e-books, season by season, as a labor of love. Later, The Artful Year transpired, based, roughly, on those four e-books.
As parents, we have the privilege of experiencing the wonder of nature, and the magic and excitement of the holidays, through a child’s eyes. It’s so different for kids than for us jaded adults. But as parents we can help shape and guide the experience our children have in this world.
I want to encourage my children to live in the moment, to experience the absolute beauty and wonder of the natural world around us, and to appreciate the ever-changing nature of life through the year. And I want to celebrate those changes with them.
Rachel Carson said, “If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.”
But I think the opposite can be true as well. If an adult is to regain her inborn sense of wonder, she benefits from the companionship of a child who is discovering for the first time the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.
And then there are the holidays, which hold such magic for kids! As parents, we can make holidays more meaningful for our children and families. Holiday traditions and celebrations (including crafting and cooking) can serve as touchstones and memory makers for families. Traditions that allow us to create and celebrate together help us build stronger families.
These ideas have all shaped how I observe and honor the seasons and holidays with my own family. I’ve incorporated them in many ways in The Artful Year book which I hope helps other families to celebrate them mindfully as well.
Kate: Tell us a little about where you live and the seasons there. Do you have hot summers? Snow in the winter? Do you have a favourite season?
Jean: We live in Asheville, North Carolina, which is a special sort of paradise in my mind. It’s small enough to be comfortable yet large enough to be interesting, with a thriving cultural scene. But what I especially love is that we are nestled in the mountains and surrounded by the beauty of nature.
There’s not a day that goes by that I’m not thankful for where I live, and I’ve lived in many places. We get the full progression of traditional seasons, but we’re in the South (of the United States) so our winters aren’t as long or harsh as some, and our mountain elevation moderates our summers as well.
Spring is my favorite, though! The calendar year might start January 1st, but to me the new year starts best in spring! Fresh shoots poking up out of the earth, new growth on old shrubs and trees, baby animals and birds, the return of warmth and longer days—what’s not to love?!
Kate: Art and craft and cooking can sometimes be a bit messy, how do you cope with that and still stay sane?
Jean: I guess it’s a matter of priorities – I value doing creative activities with my children more than I value cleanliness.
Mess and chaos are just a part of life in general and definitely a part of parenting, whether or not we do a lot of crafting and cooking together. So why not make it fun? There are so many benefits, for childhood development, as well as family connection and dynamics, that I wouldn’t want to let a bit of mess stand in the way.
That said, sometimes any additional mess is too much, and then I redirect the kids to non-messy activities or shoo them out of the kitchen.
Kate: What art supply could you not live without?
Jean: Paints! Watercolors, tempera, BioColors, acrylic – there are so many different kinds of paint. I’d have trouble choosing just one, but I really, really like both liquid watercolors and BioColor paints.
But, also, a hot glue gun, markers, paper, contact paper …
I think I failed this question.
Kate: What do you love about being a parent? What do you struggle with?
Jean: There’s so much on both sides of the equation!
I love experiencing and sharing the world through my children’s eyes – they give me a fresh perspective on the natural world around me, people, technology, education, art, seasons, holidays, food, family. Everything is filtered now through the lens of being a parent. I live with these two kids of mine who are both such unique individuals as well as representatives of the next generation.
As for what I struggle with, wow. The list is long. I’m a long ways from the perfect person or the perfect parent. And parenting can be such a balancing act – one of understanding yourself and your kids and your relationships with them, your dreams, your parents, your significant other, your kids’ teachers, etc.
Plus, every child is different. What works with one child might not work with the other. And, to shake things up even more, kids are constantly changing. What may work for a little while stops working. The kids change, the family dynamic changes, the world is always changing. Talk about keeping us on our toes!
You can find the lovely Jean at her blog The Artful Parent, as well as on facebook, pinterest, and instagram.
The Artful Year is a beautiful book full of art, craft, cooking and seasonal ideas. Even us Aussies on the other side of the world with our backwards seasons will enjoy paging through all the wonderful, doable, ideas to find something fun to share with our families. My big boy spent an afternoon bookmarking every activity he wanted to try saying “I love this! This book has everything that I love – art, cooking and holidays!”
You can buy The Artful Year at Amazon, Book Depository and many other book stores.
Win a Copy of The Artful Year!
I have a copy of this lovely book to give away to one lucky reader!
To enter simply leave a comment on this blog post telling me what your favourite seasonal activity or recipe is, and why. The most interesting and entertaining answer will win a copy of The Artful Year.
Entries close Monday February 23rd and are open worldwide – see full terms and conditions below.
Competition Terms and Conditions.
You must be 18 + years of age to enter.
You must provide a valid email address and entries are limited to one per household.
Entries close Monday February 23rd at midday Australian EST.
Entries will be judged on merit and creativity.
One winner will receive a copy of the The Artful Year – prizes may differ to the ones shown here.
Winner will be contacted by email and announced on this post by Wednesday Feb 25th 2015.
The winner must contact me within 5 days or the prize will be re-drawn.
The winner agrees to have their contact details passed on to the appropriate PR company or brand representative who will send out/organise the prizes directly.
{Disclosure: we were given a copy of this book to review. All opinions are my own. }
Hands down my favorite celebration has to be Valentine’s Day. I used to dislike it intensely because of my name, especially in high school and when I worked in shops where I wore a name tag. People just couldn’t resist. At one point, I asked my employer for a name tag that read “Bubba.” As I have gotten older, and a bit less harassed, I have embraced it and I love celebrating the spirit of the day with sweet moments focused on showing love and appreciation with my kids and husband. This year we made the oven heated foil crayon hearts from the book as described on the TinkerLabs site (note to self, check for crayons stuck to the bottom of the cookie sheet BEFORE putting it back into the oven). Besides making cards as suggested, you can re-heat the foil with recently-drawn hearts and let it fly up onto your clothes as you carry it to your waiting children and make a lovely transfer onto your down jacket. I have been wearing my new clothing transfer art non-stop in the spirit of the day. I suppose the book may have some warnings to avoid these happy mishaps (well I guess the crayon-covered oven wasn’t completely happy but it was spectatular), and I may read those suggestions if I had “The Artful Year” to refer to. I would love to expand our creative seasonal activities and our creative adventures and happy mishaps.
one of my favourite seasonal
Art activities, hard to choose just one, I like using frozen water color ice cubes for the student to create swirled backgrounds on water color paper. We then decide what habitat the colors represent on their page and they find an animal picture to cut out that would live in that habitat, and then glue it on. This is a great winter project for ice. I also love to make an igloo with the kids using 2lt milk jugs…but that a BIG project, but great for winter play!!!
Nice to meet you picklebum :-). Thank you for the opportunity to get my hands on this book! We have been incredibly inspired by Jean and her children for a little over a year now. I requested for our local library to carry this book, however it’s not in yet! :-)
First, I am thrilled that Jean Van’t Hul has released another book. I am a huge fan of the Artful Parent (blog and book). It is my first resource when I need inspiration. Her blog and book has helped me to raise a toddler who asks for art every day.
As a baker, I appreciate that Jean includes baking/cooking in the realm of artful parenting. I pulled a chair up to the counter one day and invite my 18 month old to join me. She sees my passion at work and she loves watching me create in the kitchen. She will now independently drag a chair to the counter, climb on to it and say, “Cook, Mama!”
We cook and bake many things and recently, we’ve been making our own snack bites. Ingredients include: dried apricots, rolled oats, bananas, sunflower seeds, honey, vanilla, cinnamon and shredded coconut. I usually set up all of the ingredients in small bowls ahead of time. My little one loves dumping the ingredients into the food processor. Everything but the shredded coconut is blended in the food processor. She is becoming a pro at rolling the sticky mixture into balls and then rolling it into the shredded coconut. She is focused and determined. Of course, the bonus is getting to eat a healthy snack which she thoroughly enjoys.
Such a tough question- I have so many favorites! Building a snowman is my favorite winter activity- mostly the decorating of the snowman. I try to encourage some creative thinking and get my kids to scavenge for decorations around the yard and sometimes the fridge. We have had snowmen with pine boughs for “monster” arms, one with a Carmen Miranda style fruit headdress, and another with ornamental grass hair. Its fun to watch them find and use objects in new ways!
I borrowed another one of her books from the library and it was amazing- thanks for the chance to win this one!
My grandma is a trail-blazer. At 50, she convinced my grandpa to leave the family farm and go on Volunteer Overseas Service to Fiji for her to manage an orphanage, their first big trip out of NZ. Two years became five years followed by two years in PNG high country continuing to train locals in using better farming practices. They then joined us in travelling by caravan around Australia and living in an aboriginal community in central Australia for a year. She always has loved plants, and in the spring, we would always go looking for wildflowers together. I want my little girl to appreciate the beauty of spring and of art. I think this book would help her live an ArtFull life and be a trailblazer too.
By far, my favourite activity is swimming. Even if we can’t get to a pool or the beach, I LOVE letting my little swim in the backyard in his wadding pool, watching him use his watering can and buckets, and the plethora of other toys we’ll switch out, to experiment with the water (and water my toes, legs, and head!). I taught swim lessons for 7 years, and it THRILLS me that he is such a water baby like me! At 20mo, he’ll willingly dunk his face in the water and come up grinning ear to ear! We both love to scribble on the front porch cement with sidewalk chalk (all three of us if my husband is home!) until it is a massive blur of colour, then paint, using big brushes and water, on top of it. Or grabbing the buckets and watering can again to pour it all over the colours.
I pretty much love anything summer (except the higher presence of snakes…).
Growing up in Indiana–fall is glorious. Love making pumpkin bread.
I become overwhelmed when I have to do art, I have 2 boys and I find it too messy. We live in a village, rather very rural,so I also refer to artful parents for advice, guidance and motivation. Wish her all the best with her art and projects.
We love getting outdoors, swimming in the summer, and hiking through the woods, long family bike rides with long breaks so the kids can explore. We love arts and crafts at home. We just recently put together two fun crafts for Valentine’s Day. With my 7yo we made themed keychains out of pearler beads, she loved creating with them and the possibilities are endless with what she could create. The whole family was involved, lots of fun. With my 3yo we melted crayons down into hearts for his nursery school class. He helped choose colors and fill up the molds, and even colored some cards for family with the extra hearts we had. It was fun watching his expression as we watched them melt through the oven door. Thank you for daily inspiration and your dedication to keeping the wonder of childhood alive; looking forward to reading your book!
Making (and breaking) confetti eggs for Easter. We save eggs for weeks, fill them with paper confetti, and seal the ends with tissue paper. On Easter we have a big party and the kids (and adults) have so much fun sneaking up on people and breaking them.
What an amazing giveaway. Our favorite thing to do in the spring/Summer is to build Fairy Houses! I love that idea of using, things you have to search for nature or in your house. And coming up with wonderful little houses, that spark a child’s imagination, and play and gets them OUTSIDE. After a Maine winter, we are itching to get outside and explore
I’d say I love making Valentine’s with my kids the most. I spread out a bunch of materials within the theme – red, pink, white and lavendar papers, some cut into large squares, some into various sized hears, stickers, bits of collage papers or tissue paper, beads, buttons, etc. and then we spend some time creating each one of a kind card – some collage, some with various stickers, some with colored pencils or markers, etc.
I love the spring because of a feeling of being newly reborn. The trees are budding. The tulips are coming up. My daughter used to watch a PBS show called Caillou. The Crocus started to come up and they said oh, look at the little people. I love Easter too. Jesus dying for our sins and us being reborn.
I hope I win this lovely book.
My favorite season is summer. Warm sunny days full of possibilities. A time to be carfare!
Thank you for your blog!
Hi. I have 2 boys with autism and ADHD and both love art and crafts so the Artful Parent blog and book are been very helpful for me. I love all the ideas of Jean I wish her the best and I hope to get her new book pretty soon.
I love Christmas crafts, especially making gifts for others.
Homemade playdoh…no matter the season we make it ALL year round… we made white with glitter to build snowmen for class winter party. Our friends just became big brothers so we made neon colors and supplied collage odds and ends so they could “build robots” while mom & baby needed quiet time.. We mix cinnamon in and use rolling pin & cookies cutters to make pretend gingerbread people/ cookies. I could go on and on but possibilities are endless! PS kids love to cook, use math skills to measure out ingredients, observe science as properties and colors change.etc etc. what’s NOT to love??!!