Fridge to Frame

Working with your child's art to get it off the fridge and into a frame.

A pastel pencil drawing of an elephant on a watercolour painting by our 3 year old.

For many parents the fridge has long been the default display space for their children's art. Artworks will exist on there for varying degrees of time. Some have the shelf life of a carton of milk, favourites may enjoy a longer stay, but ultimately most children's art ends up in the bin. It's a shame because those drawings are more than just random scribbles. By making marks on paper your child is working out how they feel about the world. They are expressing something, not to mention it is helping them to develop the fine motor skills they will later need for writing, and it can be a powerful medium for regulating tantrums.

I love it if you already have some of your children's art framed on the wall, but if you'd like a helping hand with turning it into a special gift for someone, I can offer 40+ years of drawing experience and a promise that it will be appreciated by the recipient. I'll help you to get it on the wall, but the love for the artwork will come from the fondness that person has for your child.

How to commission an artwork:

Send me me a message on my contact form with the subject 'Fridge to Frame' and we can start a conversation.

Give your child some paints (watercolour works best) and some paper (up to A4 size, 180gsm or higher) and let them play. Or look through what they have already made.

Pick two or three of your favourites and send them to me (I will provide the address when you make contact). I'll then draw an animal on one of them and send everything back to you.

Cost - £200

Marella & Mart

Fridge to Frame was inspired by collaborations with our daughter, Marella, with whom I have been making art since she was one year old.

MARELLA & MART ON INSTAGRAM

How it started...

How it's going...

Our collaborations are helping to support wildlife conservation. Through the sale of art we have so far raised £1873 for wildlife charities.

I started drawing on Marella's doodles in an attempt to drag myself out of a long stretch of art block. Finding shapes in my child's playful marks helped me to reconnect with the joy of creating art by letting go of expectation and simply enjoying the process. My passion for making and sharing art has never been stronger. I founded Wild Art Philanthropy IRL (WAPI) to provide access to art materials for school children in Kenya. 12 schools in the Maasai Mara that previously didn't have any art materials are now stocked with art pencils, and I recently hosted a series of workshops where we took some students out on their first ever safari and spent the afternoons experimenting with a variety of different art materials.