It is not true that all kids like to color and that you just need a box of crayons and some paper and they’ll go to town. Crayons at a restaurant were always useless for me since my oldest, despite his name, had no interest in coloring. it was actually kind of stressful for him. He practically begged to not go to his first preschool (before Willow) because the teacher made him do “hard things” like “play with crayons.” Anyway, Kindergarten kicked him in the butt with constant fine motor development and writing practice and since then I have been tickled by his drawings of bears, cacti, and our family. Then this year his second grade teaching assistant taught the class about Picasso and Matisse and we got this: 
A pig seen with his parts “all in the wrong place.” Then what’s that red thing on his head? His stomach? “His hat,” says Art. Naturally.
And this… 
This was his Matisse-style interpretation of the aquarium of guppies at his classroom table. He named it Reflection.
And here is a chameleon. The class learned a specific method for drawing them and Art has drawn a whole bunch of them since then.
Lewis has less resistance about crafty stuff than Art did at the same age. Lewis loves to paint lots and lots of swirly abstracts but still gets put off by trying to color or draw anything specific on his own. He did make this snowman from pre-cut pieces at preschool and painted this Harvest Moon as well. I’m sure it’s a fine motor thing. I’ve learned to let go. Anyway, I am being showered with artistic expression now and very happy.
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| Wet on wet watercolor Lewis did at his friend, Anika’s house. |
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| It’s a fish. Rotate 90 degrees to the left and it’s an A! He’s a GENIUS! |
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| I think this is a drawing of a game that Art created in his mind during ‘quiet time’ at his morning class before kindergarten. |
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| “I was going to make a monster, but…it…I just made a carrot instead.” – Art |
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| Multimedia plan of the house Art would like to live in, including coconut trees, an alligator, lots of windows and a fox. Made in Art Class at Barton. I just love the art teacher there. |
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| The last three pics are of a 3D collage, also from Art Class. |
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| Melted crayon print down here at our own home. (I did the swirly parts.) |
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| I feel this drawing, Netta’s first ever, illustrated her approach to most things. BLAH! |
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| Same with this painting. |
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| In contrast, Bailey’s work shows a more deliberate approach. Discuss… |
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| Another lovely wet on wet watercolor by Lewis. |
These are all little projects Art has done in what we call Morning Class, the daycare type class he goes to in the morning before his kindergarden class. It is a far more creative class than his kindergarden, which is sadly just a lot of coloring dittos. Educationally based coloring projects, but nothing like making a dragon puppet.
Or a tangram fox!
Or… Well… I think that he said those brown things are falling into a bowl down there on the right and that I can not remember what that yellow thing is. I’ll get back to you. Anyway…
A golden medal with a bomb that explodes all the “happy” things!
Art pulled this out of his backpack the other day, a lovely little alien he made in art class.
Arturo has been coming home with some wonderful things from his Art class at Barton, including this clay tile. He made the impression with his hand, made a little border, painted the whole thing and then had it fired.
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| Here is a lovely piece from Art’s first weeks in Kindergarten. I really like the art teacher there. I happen to know that the grid was one day’s project as an exploration of pencil and dark/light lines and that the next week they used paint, apparently revisiting the paper they started with the previous week. |
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| I’m not sure what this project was about but Art kept saying, “And see how I filled this in?” |
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| Here’s his name! |
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| And his self portrait hanging on the wall at school. Can you tell which is his? |
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| Art was very proud to have written the word “Stop” on this bus, which he cut out himself (following the lines drawn by the teacher). He also drew all the kids in the back of the bus, sitting vertically of course, and the bus driver in the front. “See, it says STOP. S – T – O – P.” |
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| This is Lewis’ wet on wet watercolor painting. He called it ‘Big’ because he had filled in all the white space. The paint was big even though the paper was not. |
Look what I just pulled out of Art’s back pack. EAT IT BITCHES!!! not a turtle colored wrong!!! BOOYA!!!!
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| Hard to see scale here but it’s about 3-feet long, 4 feet if you include the water shooting out of it’s nose (pipe cleaner). Notice the well placed googly eye. Jessica can’t get enough of Art’s elephant. Representational work gets her so excited! |
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