An Art Idea

Crop art, not to be confused with crop circles, caught my attention today.

I was looking around for bird pictures -- by the way, we saw many cardinals, blue jays, magpies and woodpeckers today -- and I came upon a bird blog. I noticed immediately the host was from the same state in which I live: not confusion, but rather Minnesota. So I looked through her blog and found a crop art photo. I clicked on the link and was awed.

Crop art is big in Minnesota. Apparently it has its own special category at the Minnesota State Fair and is a big deal. Some of the work is absolutely mind boggling how realistic it looks.

As a child, I remember seed roosters and owls in almost everyone's kitchen. Making things out of seeds was very popular back in the 60s and 70s. I hadn't thought of it for years until it sprang up in one of our scouting books. We actually did a seed and bean project with scouts, but the boys weren't too impressed with it. Thomas, however, really enjoyed it and he came home and made a cute little box that sits in my living room in a place of honor on my great-grandma's Hoosier cabinet.

I showed Thomas this website. All the pictures are copyrighted, so I won't share them here. Wow, we had a lot of fun looking at them. And to think, they were made from seed. Our favorites were Vincent Price and Where the Wild Things Are.

I think we're going to do some of this art. I think I am going to talk Thomas into making a Thomas the Tank Engine rice picture. (For me, not for him.) We can dye the rice and see how it works. If he enjoys the project, I might spring for some beans and seeds and go beyond.

I'm not a crafty person. I am a perfectionist and that doesn't work well when you make something for the first time and it turns out like you-know-what. This, however, looks like fun for me.

It's a good thing I just bought a huge bag of rice!

I'll share photos after we've made some progress.