Friday, March 24, 2006

Don't Eat It!


This is the first post by the contributor, Little bun. He doesn't have an account for this blog so I'm posting it for him. I wasn't sure of the title he came up with for this sketch so the one above is an interpretation of his actual title.

My son drew his very first picture today. This is a big deal since he turns two in less than three days. All previous attempts at drawing resulted in a rainbow of drool streaming out of his mouth. He's past the oral stage but for some reason every time I sit him down to draw, he sticks the crayons in his mouth.

I thought I was smart by getting the special twistable crayons. They are nice and big so tiny hands have an easy time holding them. Each crayon is encased in a plastic holder making things less messy.

We were playing in the kitchen when bun looked up his previous, highly assisted, attempts hanging on the fridge. He looked at me and said "Crayon. Draw." I sat him down in his high-chair, taped some paper to his tray and gave him the "mess free" crayons.

Any time before, I did most of the work. Call them collaborative pieces. I danced, sang songs, whatever it took to engage him in sketching and distracted from the aroma of pigmented wax crayons.

This time all I had to do was repeat my mantra, "This is a crayon. You draw with it. Don't eat it." If he ventured away from the paper and opened his mouth, I'd whisk the crayons away. Near the end, after almost filling the page, I thought we'd passed a milestone. I turned around to get a drink of water. When I glanced back I saw a gaping maw, dripping with a bright orange paste.

Baby steps.

[Geek-out] Allow me to put on my Art-Geek hat right now. If you study the arcs in the above illustration you can tell that the artist is left handed. After a close examination of the strokes one can determine the order of color selection. Yellow first, then green then red. Most of the movements that layed down the color were deliberate and rythmic rather than contemplative. [/Geek-out]

One idea we've been toying with at sketch-it has been to enlist the skills of a child contributor. We are actively recruiting qualified candidates. Little bun may continue to make guest appearances but he won't be taking requests any time soon.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That is so damn cool! Congrats Griffin (+ pops)