Good news. Our little Vincent Van ‘No’ will be bringing home some artwork on Thursday. She would have brought it home today but the paint was still drying.
Very exciting. I can’t wait to see it.
Since the parent/teacher conference during which we learned of Charlotte’s unwillingness to draw, Karen’s been really pushing… er… encouraging art projects at home, and to great success. Both the kids have really been enjoying it.
The finger painting project was a mess – all the colors ended up the same brownish hue after being mixed together. At one point, Charlotte created a perfect purple handprint. Karen was kicking herself for not moving it off the table because Charlotte decided it needed more work and ended up completely obscuring the handprint by the time she was finished.
On a somewhat related note, we’ve been encouraging Charlotte to tell her brother when she doesn’t like something, rather than just whining to us or pushing him away. At one point, we congratulated her, stating, “It’s good that you can tell Luke when you don’t like or don’t want to do something.”
Her response: “I’m also good at telling my teachers when I don’t want to do things, like draw.”
Good to know.
After it became obvious that Charlotte was indeed enjoying the drawing, Karen decided to pursue why she didn’t like to draw at school:
Karen: “Charlotte, you could do this at school you know — wouldn’t it be fun to draw with your friends?”
Charlotte: “I save my drawing for home.”
Karen: “You can draw at home and at school.”
Charlotte: “I like to draw at home, with my little brother”
Needless to say, we were quite pleased to learn that she actually painted at school today (on the second to last day). Maybe we’ll get more artwork next year. Here’s hoping.
On the bright side, Charlotte really enjoys drawing suns. It seems to be one of her favorite things to draw. Although the rays often shine in rather than out. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.
My mom likes to talk about my own affinity for drawing suns when I was a kid. Every picture I drew had a sun in it. I think my mom likes to view it as evidence of my sunny optimism. In reality, it may have been more of a shortcut. I always drew my suns in the upper corner so that I got the effect of a full sun while only drawing a quarter or a small portion of it. The rest of the sun is implied, off the page. Similarly, you only have to draw a small portion of the ray. While I do like to think of myself as an optimist, I’m afraid my suns are more evidence of laziness or, as I would prefer to think of it, an economy of effort.
I hope you enjoyed today’s serving of ‘mac & cheese.’
