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Our friend Lily, celebrated her 4th birthday on October 25th. On Monday, we asked Lily to share more with us about how she celebrates her birthday with her family. I have three birthday celebrations. One already passed and the other and the school birthday. - Lily It was like what you do at normal birthdays. - Lily So if I had to guess what you did at a normal birthday, I think you maybe ate something special. - Sam It was cupcakes! I had chocolate and she had chocolate. - Bea Cupcakes are my favorite kind of treat. - Lily It sounds like Bea was at your birthday. Were other friends there? - Sam No and one grown up and my family. - Lily She had two presents. - Bea And I had others because I had family presents too. I had two others. - Lily And one was a smoothie maker! - Bea Questions We Ask Ourselves When we start birthday committee work, we begin by having a large group brainstorming session before we dive deeper into the work with a small committee. Both in large and small groups we ask ourselves to think about what things the birthday child likes. What do we already know about the birthday child? What can we still learn? What kind of things does Lily like? Maybe she likes unicorns because she has unicorns on her mask. - Finlay She also had a unicorn birthday. - Bea Yep, I love them. They’re my favorite type of animal. - Lily * some discussion about a unicorn piñata at birthday party* They’re just kind of magical and I like kind of magical stuff. - Lily What is magical stuff? - Ines It means like they can make stuff appear that other people can’t do. - Lily Can anyone else think of other magical things? - Sam A princess? Because I have a wand from Lily’s birthday. - Bea So like a rainbow. - Finlay Also we can make some magical paper thing for Lily’s birthday. Like we could put a big piece of paper and like do a outline of a unicorn and then we paint the inside of the unicorn. - Bea I think that would be good! But maybe more than one unicorn. - Lily Like two unicorns. One’s the baby and ones the mom and ones the dad. - Bea Maybe like four. Actually three. Well one mom one baby and one dad. That’s all I want. - Lily And did you have a favorite color you’d like to share with us? - Sam Pink, red, and yellow. - Lily I knew you would! - Lily Speaking to Bea when finding out that she would be on the birthday committee. Birthday Committee Work Keeping Lily's interest in unicorns (her favorite animal) in mind, Daniel and Bea began discussing their ideas for how to incorporate this interest into the birthday portrait in addition to other ideas they had about the overall setup. We need something magical. Like sparkles coming out. She likes sparkles too. - Bea So do the sparkles come out of the unicorn? - Sam They come out of the unicorn’s horn. - Bea And have we thought about what Lily might wear? - Sam All of her favorite colors. Maybe we could sew it like we did for Remy. It would look like pink, yellow, and red. - Bea I remember for Remy you made a dress. So what do you think Lily's portrait outfit might look like? - Sam She always wears headbands. - Bea You’re right. She does wear headbands a lot. Maybe we could make her a headband. - Sam I could bring my headband. - Bea I’m wondering if we could create her something new and make her a headband. - Sam Like how we made Remy's headband? We already have one. We could use that since we already made… - Bea Well I know that the other headband was made special for Remy’s birthday portrait because of what she likes. So I’m wondering if we could make something just as special for Lily? - Sam Yeah. - Bea And make bows. - Daniel Yeah she’s wearing a bow headband right now! - Bea Great. It sounds like we have ideas for what she will wear. - Sam I don’t even know how to make a unicorn! - Daniel Well we could look at a picture. - Bea
Three images were chosen for the unicorn family. A mom, a dad, and a baby (per Lily's request)
        After tracing the three members of the unicorn family for the portrait background, Daniel and Bea decided that color should be added to each. The color inspiration came from the images found and selected to represent each unicorn. Initially, markers were chosen. It was quickly observed that it's difficult to cover large spaces with only markers as our tools. Then, we explored oil pastels and chalk which are able to be spread out and blended. These materials seemed to cover more surface area when used and exploring their "blendability" was fascinating! Drawing the unicorn hair proved to be the most challenging part of this step in the committee work. When looking around the atelier for materials, Bea noticed the yarn and thought it could be used to include as the unicorn's hair because the properties of yarn are "warm and soft" like hair!     Making a Headband Knowing that Lily often wears headbands, Bea went to the source to find out more about the functionality of a headband and what it's made of. Lily removed her headband to give Bea a closer look. Ohhh bending. - Bea I think you used a material recently that you could bend when you made a sculpture for my birthday. - Sam Oh. wire! - Bea And what’s wrapped around the headband? - Sam That’s ribbon. - Lily And you could also use fabric. - Bea This is for the birthday committee, right? I can tell. You’re asking me a lot of questions! - Lily And how would we make the bow? Fabric? And tied it and clipped it on (the headband) - Bea Look. it’s rippable. And you can slip it back on. - Lily (demonstrating how to remove bow from headband) Daniel and Bea then got to work selecting materials and creating the headband accessory for Lily to wear in the photo shoot.  items were chosen based on Lily's personal color preferences - yellow, red, and pink. When finished with the custom made headband, Daniel and Bea shared the following thoughts: It looks like, "Hello! I love you!" - Bea It looks like a pop band. (singer) - Daniel
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