Painting for Dummies

Art is not my forte. During my school years I always did well with straight up perspective drawings because they are all straight lines done with a ruler, but as soon as I was asked to add a tree or a bush to my straight road with a picket fence or add people to my square city blocks, I was done for. I can do a pretty convincing stick figure, but other than that, my artistic endeavors are laughable. I can paint crafts, but when it comes to straight up drawing or painting likenesses of anything, I’m pretty abysmal. It’s bad enough that when I was teaching school, my fourth graders used to make fun of me:

Me: {trying to draw something convincing on the chalkboard}

Students: Teacher, what is that?

Me: A dog.

Students: No, it’s not! It’s a marshmallow on a stick!

Me: {not even a little bit offended} Yeah, well, I do my best. {chuckle}

With that bit of background information, you will understand that I was pretty reluctant to participate when my relief society had a painting night. They assured us that anyone could do it, but still, when 9-year-olds laugh at your skills, you really have to face the fact that you are not an artist. However, I was saved from humiliation by the big old headache I had that evening. I would have preferred to be joking about my lack of artistic prowess with the ladies in the ward, but it was not to be. However, there were supplies left over after the activity and when offered to any who had not been able to attend, I actually decided to take advantage of that offer. Because I could give it a try and if it turned out horrible, at least I would have something to keep me entertained for a while, right?

But guess what? Turns out even I can paint by number. 😂 I created my masterpiece during conference this past weekend and I’m actually pretty pleased with the result. And now that it is done, you can’t even see the little numbers that led to my success. 😜

From My Artist

Visual Aids

Malia is a mighty 9th grader this year which means that she is now eligible for seminary. She had some problems with her schedule before school started, but as her counselor was tossing ideas at her, dropping seminary was definitely not an option for her. And I’m so glad. Because seminary was when the gospel kind of came alive for all our boys and honestly, I’m hoping that it will be good for Malia as well. I think she had a good dose of the “living gospel” experience at FSY this year, because FSY is basically like being in seminary all day every day for a whole week, but having the smaller, consistent doses if important. Especially because middle school is the cesspool of the world, only to be outclassed by the high school. Seriously, there is a lot of stuff that the kids really have to go blind to in order to survive the public school system. So, seminary. A valuable tool to strengthen our youth and help our kids survive in this crazy world.

In Malia’s seminary class today, the kids were put into small groups and each one of them had to teach the rest of their group about one part of the plan of salvation. Malia was assigned to enlighten the group on premortal life and because she is who she is, she drew pictures. And it was spot on. And it made me laugh because her sense of humor came through. So here is Malia’s interpretation of the council in heaven and our premortal life. Enjoy. I did!

We All Have Different Talents

As I’ve mentioned in the past, Malia has a knack for drawing. Not only does she enjoy it, but she has a talent. For about the past year, she has been focusing on drawing dragons. Nathan gave her a book about how to draw dragons for Christmas in 2020, and since then, all her practice has paid off and she has become quite skilled. She was working on a new drawing this afternoon and Nathan, by way of complimenting her skills, commented that he can only draw stick figure dragons. Then, smart aleck that he is, he proceeded to do so. Both Malia and I laughed. And then about twenty minutes later, Malia shared her progress on her current drawing. I love that my kids are all so different. It makes things interesting and keeps me on my toes. 

They Definitely Don’t Get This from Me

I am not a great artist. In fact, the only kind of drawings that I ever did well were perspective drawings of buildings and fences because that is all done with a ruler. I’m bad enough that when I was teaching elementary school, my students would make fun of me. It was all in jest because I was not offended at all, but still, it’s pretty sad. On the other hand, my children have a good deal of artistic skill. Nathan used to love to draw and took several semesters of art classes in middle school and really enjoyed them. Malia loves to draw and seems to have a good eye for detail. And Matthew has brought home several projects that I think are fantastic. In 5th grade he did a chalk drawing of some toucans that I like so much that we framed it and have it hanging on the wall.

This morning he happened to find a sketch that he did sometime during sixth grade. He is very proud of it, as well he should be. Unlike me, the kid can definitely draw more than a stick figure.

Daniel is really the only one of my kids who didn’t really enjoy drawing, but he can take a 3 foot square piece of paper and fold it into a dragon that has scales and individual claws, so I don’t think that he really needs a writing implement in his hand to create art. 😉