A Great Nephew and a Great Aunt-Guests Michelle Heidenrich Barnes and her 12-year-old daughter, Miranda

Posted on by Penny Parker Klostermann
Ants may rule the hill, but they don’t rule here! Art by Landon (Click to Enlarge)
Ants may rule the hill, but they don’t rule here! Art by Landon (Click to Enlarge)

Hello, Great Readers of our series! Just in case you haven’t visited before, let me tell you a little about A Great Nephew and A Great Aunt. My great nephew, Landon (a fifth-grader) and I (his great aunt) collaborate. I write a poem which he illustrates. We started this collaboration last fall and have had so much fun with it that we decided to invite others along. Landon and I will continue to have a new episode on the second Friday of each month. The other Fridays are filling up quickly with guests. I have created a page on my website to view all the episodes of A Great Nephew and a Great Aunt. Click HERE to visit the page and enjoy past episodes.

Today it is my pleasure to welcome the collaborative team of . . .

Michelle Heidenrich Barnes and 12-year-old daughter, Miranda

Sharing a love of the arts, poetry, cats, and Twizzlers, they also both eat whimsy for breakfast… and sometimes for lunch and dinner too.

Multigenerational Portrait_MirandaBarnes
Multigenerational Portrait, mixed media by Miranda Barnes, 2014

Michelle says, “Besides the heart-melting portrait above, one of my favorite Miranda masterpieces is this watercolor that she painted at summer art camp when she was ten.”

Miranda says, “It’s in the style of James Rizzi, but the bird and smiling stars watching over the city were my idea. I wanted to add something whimsical and beautiful to it.”

The Art

Untitled_MirandaBarnes
Untitled, watercolor by Miranda Barnes, 2013

The PoemSlide1

Many thanks to Michelle and Miranda for sharing their creative collaboration with us today! Clearly they’re an incredibly talented and creative pair.

Miranda


Meet Miranda: Miranda is a totally awesome 7th grader at the P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School at the University of Florida, where her favorite subjects are art and performing arts, and she is on the literary magazine staff. In her free time, she is a member of the Girl Scout leadership team that plans camping trips and other events for scouts in the region. She also enjoys listening to music, reading, making jewelry, and, of course, drawing– especially people, animals, and comic strips. She writes poems occasionally, but prefers to illustrate them.

Michelle
Meet Michelle: Michelle enjoyed several years as a successful writer of greeting card copy before following her bliss as a writer of children’s poetry and picture books. Her work appears in The Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations (ed. Vardell/Wong) and Dear Tomato: An International Crop of Food and Agriculture Poems (ed. Hoyte), and will also appear in the forthcoming anthology One Minute Till Bedtime (Little, Brown, 2016), edited by U.S. Children’s Poet Laureate Kenn Nesbitt. Visit Michelle at her blog, Today’s Little Ditty, where she showcases contemporary children’s authors and offers monthly poetry challenges for anyone with a penchant for wordplay. Learn more about Michelle at her website, MichelleHBarnes.com.

Diane Mayr at Random Noodling has gather the link for the Poetry Friday Roundup today. If you’d like to know more about Poetry Friday, click HERE.poetry friday button

 

86 thoughts on “A Great Nephew and a Great Aunt-Guests Michelle Heidenrich Barnes and her 12-year-old daughter, Miranda”

  3. Robyn Campbell tried to comment but without success. She was kind enough to email her comment:

    I absoututily love this post. Michelle, your daughter paints beautifully and your poetry matches up quite wonderifacally. You two are kagazzling dazzling and super dizoozzling. Wonderful pair, Penny. Sorry I’m late making it by.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. I hope Miranda, like her talented mama, never loses her appetite for creative pursuits and birds of epic proportions. It was a treat to peek into your mother-daughter bond today. Thank you!

    Liked by 2 people

  10. This post is full of such whimsy and life. It makes me want to do a happy dance! Oh and it makes me want to get Landon and Miranda together;);)

    Liked by 2 people

  24. Two talented ladies whose work together is a delight to both eyes and ears! Thanks for inviting them and us, Penny!

    Liked by 2 people

  26. Wow, the artist gene is running heavy here! LOVE Miranda’s work so much… is that ribbon on the collage piece?? Absolutely love it and want to see more more more! I will carry this with me today. Thank you, both, and to you, Penny, for this feature that always warms and inspires me. xo

    Liked by 2 people

  28. WHOA!!!! Hey there, Barnes ladies — pardon me while I fix my hair, which was completely blown back by the talent on this page! Miranda … all I can say is WOWZA. That sophisticated portrait and the wonderful, whimsical watercolor are just beautiful. What an artist you are! Michelle, proud mamma, you did your daughter’s work justice. I am duly impressed with this duo. They’re TERRIFICUS!

    Liked by 2 people

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