artist turns her daughter’s doodles into watercolor works
all images courtesy of ruth oosterman

 

 

 

in collaboration with her two-year-old toddler eve, ruth oosterman has painted a series of vibrantly colored watercolors, using her child’s doodles as the final artwork’s framework. with a black ink pen, eve has drawn dissected strokes and simple abstract geometries onto a sheet of paper, marked on the page with the liberation and lack of inhibition inherent in young minds. with these etchings acting as a sort of compositional structure, oosterman has envisioned what could lie in-between the lines and has illustrated the hidden picture within the scribbles.

 

 


the elephant king – painting collaboration with a toddler
video courtesy of ruth oosterman

 

 

 

playful and surreal images from the ‘elephant king’, a giant purple creature bearing a golden crown, and ‘the lady and the fox’, a red-headed woman wearing an animal-like hairpiece, are brought out through the speedy use of watercolor paint, keeping the original work, she describes ‘simple and true’oosterman describes, ‘just as my painting forms, I make sure to follow her outlines and leave some of her drawing visible, keeping it a collaboration. it is a fine balance that I am continuing to learn from.’

ruth oosterman turns daughter's doodles into paintings
the toddler’s sketch is turned into ‘elephant king’

ruth oosterman turns daughter's doodles into paintings
the great owl

ruth oosterman turns daughter's doodles into paintings
the first collaboration with eve

ruth oosterman turns daughter's doodles into paintings
a bookworm’s dream