Watching kids paint
My daughter has a small table for drawing and arts. She goes there to paint something in the morning, those 5 minutes before breakfast. She goes there when I say I am done reading books with her. She pulls her friend there as soon as she walks into the house. That table is full of crayons, markers and layers and layers of previous paintings from today, yesterday… She paints, sometimes feverishly, sometimes very contemplative, she paints when she is sad, she paints when she is excited. She paints. Every day. Without being asked. And the weird thing about it is that it actually isn’t weird. She is not the exception. She is the norm. Most kids are like that. Kids just love to paint.
It is amazing to see how they do it: First of all they just start – without thinking (!!!) without any plan. They dive right into it and find their focus. And boy, they are soo focused. They paint just random colors and forms or they paint what fascinates them: what we did the other day, what they saw another kid doing. They paint their moment of life, what matters right now. And they have their periods where they paint the same ideas or colors over and over. Just like Picasso’s blue period -although it is more often sparkly and pink. They experiment with what is surrounding them, they glue leaves, shells, straws, or if you don’t watch out your jewels. They can be so angry if something doesn’t turn out, they rip the picture, throw the brush across the room . And then…
05/26/2015 at 2:36 pm
The Dirty Easel Blog Archive Watching kids paint – The
Dirty Easel is a terrific piece of writing,
I’m sharing with my good friends.
06/04/2015 at 10:12 am
Thank you so much for your kind words.