PicassOH!
Once upon a time, our daughter commented that an artist’s work we saw in a shop wasn’t so great because “it looks like scribbles.” In an effort to try to expand her creativity, it occurred to me that other than the rare kid’s book, there isn’t much out there to explain different kinds of art to kids in a way that makes sense in their little world. I guess kids try so hard to learn how to draw things literally, that it’s difficult for them to understand why anyone would INTENTIONALLY draw something unrecognizable!
We had learned a little about Frida, and how she “painted her dreams.” Then I taught her to “dance” with the paint, like Pollock. Like their work or don’t, but each one of them was important to the history of art for a reason, and I think helping someone else make sense of that reason is a fun challenge.
So I saw another opportunity in Picasso. Picasso was a fine artist, and actually drew quite realistically, but what really set him apart was when he expanded on the idea of breaking up the face into its most basic SHAPES. He also played with the idea of seeing if he could show different perspectives in the same piece. Could she be turned to the side, but also show both of her eyes? What would that look like?
This was fun, because it didn’t take a lot of prep work. When our daughter came home from school, I had a plate full of shapes that I had cut out of construction paper waiting for her, along with some glue.
“Picasso made shapes into faces,” I told her. “Let’s see if we can make a face using only shapes.” So we happily cut and pasted. At first she balked a little. “Your dress looks strange,” she questioned me. “And why are her cheeks two different colors?” Because, my dear, we’re trying to mix things up a bit. Picasso-style.
I told her it didn’t have to be perfect, and it didn’t have to look EXACTLY like the thing you were trying to draw. It was just supposed to be a fun experiment. What would it look like if you used shapes for the eyes instead of drawing them?
She couldn’t help herself, and finished some additional spots in pen. And although she struggled with the need for symmetry, she was able to step out of her comfort zone a bit and enjoyed trying something new.
We left the shape plate on the table, and she created a rabbit the next day. (I KNOW those mismatched ears were killin’ her…)
So, like we did with Pollock and Frida, I showed her a drawing of Picasso I had done, and she drew a body for him. She put him in stripes, gluing little shapes down onto paper, just like we did. And while that may not have been Picasso’s medium, the basic idea is there, I think.
Besides, I think Picasso might have actually had fun with construction paper and glue.
So if you’re looking for a fun kid project that also teaches them about art, give it a try! And I’d love to see what you come up with over on the Facebook page!
(OH! And if you’d like to see more artsy artwork from both me AND the kiddo, I’m on Instagram now!–@busymockingbird. But more about that later…)
DIY Printable Tattoos
YOU GUYS!! Did you know you could make your own temporary tattoos from doodles you already HAD?!? …Okay, well I didn’t. But I experimented with them, and here’s how it went down.
First off, I’ll warn you that I only tried two brands–one was HORRIBLE and the other was not too shabby. But neither one of them came out like the ink ones you get at the store or in a pack of gum–instead of transferring the ink, they both had an adhesive backing to them, so it’s basically like putting a very very very thin sticker on your arm. Or like letting Elmer’s glue dry on your skin. (I have super sensitive skin that doesn’t like adhesives, so for freaks like me, that might be a problem.)
I used this brand, which says you should use it with this special die-cutting machine, but you TOTALLY don’t have to (Sorry, Silhouette). You take your images, flip them, and print them out. There’s a plastic sheet you rub onto it once it dries, to sort of hold the adhesive down. Then you have to cut out your “tattoos.”
I’ll warn you that NOT cutting closely around the image means you’ll get adhesive everywhere there’s blank space, as you can barely see in this closeup picture:
Not cool. So take my word for it, and just cut closely around your image.
The rest is like a regular temporary tattoo: peel off the plastic sheet, and place it face-down where you want it on your skin. Again, a word of warning: You’re essentially putting a very very very thin adhesive on your skin, so if you have super hairy arms, you might want to opt for a less-hairy spot.
Wet the back of the “tattoo” and peel it off.
And temporarily cover yourself in your own awesomeness! Woohoo!
On Santa and Gnomes
A word of warning: This post is a little long, but it has a point. Hang in there.
Christmas is weird. It’s a strange time for a parent, and strange time for a kid. What you believe and don’t believe? Now THAT is the question. My parents always taught me that Santa was more about an idea, a spirit of giving. That there WAS a St. Nick, but now we sort of carry on the magic and spread the love around. And all that jazz.
(Now it’s a bit of a hike to get from Santa to building a gnome house, but please stick around and follow me, here…)
I always felt weird about flat-out lying about a big man sneaking into our house in the middle of the night (bringing toys or not)…especially since my husband’s deployed and she’s ALREADY worried about “strangers.” I found it hard to sell that when it didn’t really make a whole lot of sense, did it? I couldn’t really ever get into the “Elf on the Shelf” idea for the same reason.
So when our VERY practical daughter asked me about Santa, I told her the same thing my parents did. And she was silent. Which usually means she’s mulling it over. So I wasn’t surprised when later she asked the same thing: “Is Santa real?” I got the feeling that she wasn’t happy with my previous explanation, so I tried again in the same way, adding an explanation that it’s fun to PRETEND that he’s real. She silently mulled it over once more, and still later asked me again: “Some kids at school say that Santa is NOT real. Is that right?”
Finally, torn between explaining the real story of Santa and going along with a “lie,” I asked her: “Well, what do YOU believe?” And she thought about it awhile, very seriously contemplating it, and finally said firmly, “I think he’s real.” “Okay,” I said. “Then he’s real.” I’m not sure she entirely convinced herself, but she enjoyed the idea.
The Santa Debate brought questions of other anomalies. “Are fairies real? Are aliens real? Witches? What about gnomes?” To each I would respond, “I don’t know—you know, I’ve never SEEN one, so I don’t know if they’re real or not. But what do YOU believe?” She asked me about the kids at school, and I said, “People believe all kinds of things. And since nobody knows for sure, then nobody is wrong. You believe what you believe, and you let other people believe what they believe.”
So somehow, we got on the topic of gnomes.
I told her a story about how when I was a kid, my parents took my sister and I on a walk in the woods, and my dad helped us construct a little bridge across a tiny stream with sticks and dental floss. Days later, when we came back to check on it, someone had left a note saying, “Thanks, good job!” We joked that the gnomes had left it. Our daughter loved that story, and suggested we build a gnome house and that maybe if we did, they’d come visit US. I sort of agreed to it, but didn’t think much else about it, dismissing it as one of the hundreds of project ideas she has in any given hour. But days later, and she was still persistent.
So we built a gnome house.
It was a fun little project, and we got all our supplies on a quick visit to the craft store. She was excited picking out stickers and decorative things to go along with it. I went the easy route and started with those pre-made papier-mache houses you find at the craft store for $5. While she happily decorated it with markered gnomes, I hot-glued sticks and fake plants to the roof. 
She drew all over the outside, and filled the inside with a doodled Christmas tree (probably influenced by the fact that ours is still up. Don’t judge.) and other stickers & doodles. And the front door was headed by a cute little “painting gnome.” 
We put some of her dollhouse furniture in it. She put tomatoes in it “for dinner,” she said. And we tucked the little gnome house into the corner of our back porch, to protect it from the rain, since we don’t have any trees around. 
(Side note: That little garden gnome in the picture above is actually a weird little terracotta gnome I got at Ikea ages ago. It came plain, but I painted to look like the gnomes from the Gnome Book. The book Gnomes was a favorite of mine as a kid. It explained gnomes in a realistic way, and fit them into our world as if they WERE real.)
Later, that evening, I threw out the little tomatoes, partly to see if she’d notice, and partly so our little food-hungry dog wouldn’t tear the gnome house up trying to get to them. It all reminded me a little of the Dinovember post that was going around a while back.
Today, it rained. So I decided to have fun with it, and added a few muddy footprints leading up to the house, and a few pea seeds and a tiny carrot from our garden on the table. 
When she saw them this afternoon, she was excited. And I was excited for her. “GNOMES! I didn’t know we could really have GNOMES!” But honestly, I’m pretty sure she didn’t believe it. I suspect she’s enjoying just playing along…
And I’m not sure if I want to run with it, or just sort of let her in on the fun of pretending….
I don’t want to totally LIE to our kid—she’s always known us to be able to give her straight answers on nearly any topic imaginable. But I don’t want to rob her of that magical fun stuff that makes up being a kid. Her world hasn’t been completely defined by reality yet—for all she knows, there ARE such things as horses with wings or giants. Why not gnomes? After all, we’re all free to believe what we want, right?
…And a Happy New Sketchbook
Do you sketch? I do. A lot. I have drawn in lots and lots of sketchbooks. There’s such a good feeling of potential inspiration on the gaining of a new sketchbook. But for me, doing so means involving myself in a bizarre sort of ritual: I MUST decorate the cover. Usually, it is with whatever I happen to be inspired or influenced by at the time. But here’s the catch: if the cover doesn’t turn out so well in my eyes, I have trouble drawing in that sketchbook, and it ends up being a total waste of perfectly good drawing paper.
I know, I know–that’s silly, right? Well for me, it’s true. There’s something to be said for making your surroundings, and the place you like to “nest” aesthetically pleasing. It lights little sparks in your mind, gives you the warm fuzzies, and encourages you to try new creative things. “Come on in!” it says. “Welcome! There are so many awesome things to see!” But mess up the front of that sketchbook, and it says in a nasty little voice, “Those things you like to doodle? They are not very good. Don’t bother, because it will just look horrible.”
I have decorated new sketchbooks with a variety of doodles and paintings over the years. These little tattooed “milk men” were from a time when I was very influenced by some vintage tattoo books.
And this octopus lady? Well, I’m not sure WHAT’S going on with her, but I’ve always really loved her eyes. And what a friendly smile, amIright?
One time very recently, our daughter saved a sketchbook from near doom. I had been trying desperately to rescue this drawing by adding highlights and more “tribal” hair, and patterns and all sorts of whatnots, when she came over and asked me if she could help me by adding “highlights in her hair.” Knowing what lay on the line, and the potentially sad fate of this sketchbook, I let her, and with three simple brush swipes of white in her hair, she completely saved it.
As you can imagine, over the years, my ever-growing collection of sketchbooks had built up and was responsible for a fairly large chunk of our military moving weight. (For non military folks, a quick explanation: the military allows only so much weight per family it will ship when you move to your next duty station. My love of books and my sketchbooks have been a fairly decent chunk of that weight for a good part of our marriage….) So much so that it was almost weighing ME down to keep those old sketches around. In a way, some sketchbooks are like looking back at a snapshot of your life at the time. You see the ups, the downs, the inspirations and the failed attempts at drawing, mundane grocery lists, mental notes, favorite quotes. All the little snippets of day to day life that someone like me (who usually has a sketchbook within arms reach at all times) might have.
So one year, I decided that except for a few special sketchbooks, I would take only the highlights from all of the sketchbooks from all of the years, and make a scrapbook. I took my favorite things, even the little snippets and sketches and notes, and compiled them into one huge scrapbook. It was a little intimidating at first to consider throwing anything away, but in a way it felt sort of good to get rid of all of that extra weight, to throw it away forever, and have something to show for it; something that felt good. Something that made that little voice say, “HEY! Some of these are pretty good! See–maybe you’re not so bad after all!”
…So it’s almost the new year! And I have a new sketchbook. And whatever I decide to put on the cover, I want it to be a good one. I want it to make me feel happy, to feel good. I want it to inspire me to do better, to be better. …So, metaphorically speaking….what would you put on YOUR new sketchbook?
Happy happy happy!
Whatever you celebrate, here’s wishing you a very merry one, and all the best for the new year! Be kind to eachother, and spread it around whenever you can!
And if you can’t be near your loved ones (like we can’t), an extra big hug goes out just to you…
Quick! I Need a Crafty Gift!
It happens. I understand. Things get hectic, and you inevitably forget someone on your gift list. And the teachers! What about the teachers?!? Well, I have a habit of making many of my gifts myself (when time permits), and have learned a few pointers that will help you give them a personal touch, even if time is running out.
1. Something Wooden. In any craft store or section, there’s usually a decent selection of random wooden things. Grab a sharpie, get to doodling, then spray it with gloss varnish to set it.
If you’ve got a little more time, you can paint it in a little more detail with acrylics, or decoupage some little graphics onto it. Doodle some final touches with a permanent marker or paint pens, and you’re good to go!
2. Personalize Some Clothing. Inexpensive shirt + permanent marker and a little heat-setting=cute little something for someone.
Got a new baby in town that you need a creative gift for? Give your kid free reign with some permanent markers (hey–be careful with those!) on a package of plain onesies and it makes a cute (and wearable) keepsake. (These are ones our daughter did for her new baby cousin.)
You could also personalize it with some iron-on transfers or shapes you made yourself…(I did a blog post about it ages ago).
3. Embroidery Hoop T-shirt Art. SUPER easy. Take some favorite old “retired” t-shirts, cut ’em up, and stretch them across some embroidery hoops to hang on the wall. Voila! Fancy wall art!
4. Cup Cozy. With some iron-on appliques or your own brand of embroidery work, a quick little cup cozy is a nice touch around the office (at least, I hope my manager thinks so). They even have pre-made base parts in some crafty places. Wrap it around a reuseable coffee cup with a button hook or velcro, and toss in a gift card, or a few packets of tea.
5. Shrinky Jewelry. A good gift for a loved one. We love shrinky art. But what do you do with all those wonderful little doodles? You can make these doodle chimes. Or drill some tiny holes in them and hook them up to a ready-made charm bracelet.
6. A Quick Little Doll. I’m not sure, but most kids like dolls, don’t they? Mine does. If you’re skilled with the sewing of things, a quick little doll can be made with a little bit of fabric and some easy shapes. I made this little brachiosaurus in just a couple of hours. I probably wouldn’t turn to me if I needed help with the basics of sewing, but if you can handle your own, this is a quick & easy gift to make that kids should like.
7. Drill a Hole in a Dinosaur. Okay, I found this on Pinterest somewhere. I got an inexpensive little plastic dinosaur toy & used my Dremel tool to cut his back out, filled him with dirt and put a little mint plant inside. Easy peasy!
8. Turn a Watch into a Locket. Got a little more time? Find a used watch or order a cute crafty-looking one. Take the back apart (just go with it–I had to experiment myself) and replace all the guts with a cute little photo of your intended person’s family, pet, or special something-or-other.
9. Something Edible. If baking’s your thing, you could make all kinds of fantastic, wonderful, edible things. I’m not so good at that sort of thing, but I know an edible thing is nearly always appreciated (as long as you’re aware of someone’s possible allergies or food restrictions). This is an owl cake I made for our daughter’s 3rd birthday. Okay, I’m not suggesting you make someone a full-on CAKE, but if baking is your thing, I’m sure you already have ALL sorts of wonderful, edible ideas. We made cookies for the local firefighters, and they were so happy to have us stop by, that they didn’t even notice (or care) that I pretty much stink at making decent cookies.
10. Fill Up A Cup. This is an easy go-to I like to do for teachers or friends. Find a cute cup (OH! Look! This one happens to be from the shop of our collaboration doodles! Um. Yeah, a lot of people might be seeing those for Christmas this year…). Anyway, fill up the cup with a handful of chocolate kisses or candies, a pen and a notepad, and show your teacher how much you appreciate them!
So there you have it! Just a few little easy ideas for some last-minute gifts. I hope it helps if you’re in a pinch. I know most of my friends and family have personally already seen half the things on this list, or gotten them as gifts already. If not….well….Keep an eye out, you’ll probably see them THIS year, too. Not because I waited til the last minute….but BECAUSE I CARE! 🙂
And since I’ll be out of the loop and full of all kinds of good cheer next week, here’s wishing you all happy holidays, everyone! And my fingers crossed for another very happy new year…
A Little Derby Detour…
I have a soft spot for Alaskan roller derby. Not long ago, I painted a helmet for a derby girl on the Rage City all-star team out of Anchorage, Alaska. (Have you seen my post about customizing derby helmets?) Since I used to play derby (on a much smaller team) in Alaska, I was super excited to hear that Rage City is raising money to travel to Texas to play in the heart of derby’s rebirth! And since we currently reside in Central Texas, I’m excited to see that happen.
Roller derby teams are almost always non-profit businesses, which means they have to raise all their money to play, to travel, to rent the practice space, to hold general insurance, and to hold bouts ALL by themselves, by hitting the pavement and asking for help. They have car washes, bake sales, make their own merch, all in their spare time, just to keep their team alive. What people get from derby is SO much more valuable. It’s strength from a quiet, shy girl who never really had a voice. It’s power from a bigger girl who always felt “in the way.” It’s determination from a geeky girl who never played a sport. These ladies work and train HARD, all while living everyday lives, working everyday jobs, being moms, wives, and students. Even if a team gets beat in a bout, there’s still so much love & respect for each other for actually having the nerve to get out and DO it that it doesn’t matter a whole lot. They know the work and dedication that goes into it. And there’s a fun bond in derby because there’s room for everyone–all shapes, all sizes, all ages, all walks of life.
SOOoooo if you’d like to help Rage City make their way to Texas, or support a fun, exciting sport at the same time, please go over to their GoFundMe page and help some sisters out!
Pollock
As goofy and carefree as our daughter is, she has a lot of the same rigidity that I always had growing up. I can see it in her, how she wants things to be a certain way, and how, without some coaxing, she can be very inflexible on how things should look. I have tried my best to instill in her the “there are no mistakes, only happy accidents” idea that my mother instilled in me, and that Bob Ross reaffirmed, and she actually does pretty well with that. But this day, I thought I’d try something new with her. Before she got home from school, I set up some washable paints, had a dropcloth on hand, a big bowl of water, and some drawing paper.
And I taught her how to Pollock.
You can read all you like about Jackson Pollock. And you can like his paintings or dislike them. I didn’t used to appreciate him. For me, it finally took understanding what his process WAS to really appreciate his work. (It’s still not my favorite work, but I have learned to see the value in it.)
Surprisingly, it was a unusually, beautifully, chilly but wonderful day in central Texas, so we were lucky enough to be able to go outside for our project.
And so I told her there was an artist named Pollock, who liked to make a mess. That got her attention. I told her that he made paintings where he stood over the paper with a bucket of paint in his hand and splattered paint on the paper. He danced around the canvas, he literally moved his body all over the room, splashing paint around, not caring if his shoes got splattered or if he got dirt in the paint. He made beautiful messes. For me, Pollock was more about the experience of moving with the paint, not so much about the final product.
So as we splattered and as she danced around the paper with her paintbrushes, I asked our straight-laced daughter (who doesn’t like scribbling at ALL), what she thought Pollock was trying to paint. She looked at the painting. She wasn’t quite sure. To her it just looked like a fun mess.
“Well, how does it make you FEEL to jump around with the paintbrush and make splatters?” “It’s super fun,” she said. “Maybe it just made him feel GOOD.”
Yes! I think it did. “Maybe that was what he did to feel better if he was frustrated. Or maybe he was showing how he feels when he’s angry. Or frustrated. Or excited. Or happy.”
She liked that idea. “I like to DRAW when I’m happy.”
Afterward, I brought her the head of Pollock I had drawn earlier in my sketchbook. “Would you like to draw on Pollock? What do you think he would be doing? Maybe he could have a bucket in his hand or a paintbrush or something?”
Excited to get back to her comfort zone, she happily picked up a pen and said, “Bathtub.” I wondered, at first, if she had lost interest in this project. “What? Why a bathtub?” I asked.
“Because he’s so MESSY! He’s getting paint everywhere!”
And of course it makes sense that when presented with splatters and chaos, our kid wants to tidy it up and make it pretty again.
Frida!
Frida and I go way back. When I was a young ‘un in art school, my roomates and best friend teamed up to gift me a book or two from the local book store, and one of them was the Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Portrait. My friends had said that if it wasn’t my cup of tea, I could exchange it. Well, being more into fantasy and figural art at the time, and not yet having gained an appreciation for more modern artists, I decided to do something unprecedented for me, something I had never done before: I exchanged the gift for two books of two artists I DID know: Egon Schiele (maybe NSFW) and Boris Vallejo.
And I always felt guilty about it.
Later, I took a course in 20th century art, and while it wasn’t always my cup of tea, I began to gain a much stronger appreciation for the “why” of modern work, and even later still, for women in art—bold women who didn’t just paint flowing, pastel things, but who painted strange and thought-provokingly surreal images.
Of course, I saw the movie Frida, with Salma Hayek. Of course, I loved it.
Fast-forward: Years later, all kinds of random things happened. Fast-forward a little more. Years later, we had a daughter. A little farther: Years later, out of the blue, my sister-in-law got our daughter a little Frida shirt for her 4th birthday.
It was like seeing an old friend! Involved with everyday things as well as discovering our daughter’s artistic side, I had forgotten all about Frida. Our daughter was excited to know who it was on this new shirt. I told her excitedly, “It’s an ARTIST!” She said, “a GIRL one like me and you?” and her excitement was clear: there was another girl, like me and like her, that love love LOVED to draw and paint.
I remembered that there was a children’s book on Frida. We got it, and she loved it. The beautiful, simple paintings, the easily-told story. Just a wonderful introduction to an artist, told in a simple way that a kid could understand.
When our little collaborations became a regular thing, I decided one day to draw Frida in my sketchbook. Since she was familiar with her, I wondered what she would do. I showed her a picture of how the real Frida looked and how she dressed. She studied it carefully, and began to draw, adding squiggly flowers in her hair and on her dress. When she started adding on to her arms, I asked her what she was drawing. “Paintbrushes,” she said. “She’s painting.” And that made me smile.
She’s had a fondness for Frida since that shirt first came. It was a great opportunity to teach her about other artists.
The other day, I doodled Georgia O’Keefe, just for giggles. I told her a little about how Georgia was an artist who loved to draw flowers. (FLOWERS, people!!) So she drew her with flowers in her hands. She wasn’t quite as interested in Georgia (admittedly, neither am I), but maybe now we’ll make this a fun little habit. It may be a good way to teach her about other artists and why they were such a big deal.
Hmmm….Maybe I see a new series coming on… 🙂
If you want a little Frida for yo’self, I put FRIDA PRINTS up at Society6. I think I may need a mug of my own….
UPDATE: I did a step-by-step walkthrough of Frida with Paintbrushes for Jerry’s Artarama. Check it out!
“Dracarys.”
I’m a pretty fair Game of Thrones fan, but let me get one thing clear: our 4-year old daughter does NOT watch it. Aside from obvious inappropriateness, the last thing we need is her running around with a sword, threatening to behead people, poking them with “the pointy end,” or having nightmares about three-eyed crows and white walkers and such. So when I got this little Khaleesi figurine, I guessed that (as I eventually did with my Ren & Stimpy figurines which I got way before the Kid existed) I’d probably end up having to share her…or at the very least, explain who she was.
And so began the tale of the Dragon Lady. Our daughter was immediately fascinated (as I knew she’d be) by this little lady toy with a dragon on her arm. She wanted to know all about her. So I explained how this girl had a dream and took some dragon eggs someone gave her into the fire, but how she didn’t get burned, and THREE DRAGONS hatched, and they became like her pets. Leaving out the bits about how the dragons became unruly and decimated entire cities, I explained how this girl “rescued” people, and they called her Khaleesi, and the “Mother of Dragons.” She was enthralled. “Show me the real lady!” she pleaded, hovering near my phone (I answer any difficult kid-questions via a mad dash online).
And so I did.
“Can we please draw her?!?” she asked, and hovered over my sketchbook, patiently waiting for me to draw the face of this Khaleesi. I had barely gotten a face drawn when she excitedly asked to finish it.
She liked it so much, this idea of a dragon queen, that we drew her a couple of other times as well. This one was my favorite. It sat in my sketchbook for quite a long time. I loved, it but couldn’t quite figure out how to make it make sense. That shell-looking thing on the right is fire. The scribbles on her dress are supposed to represent the wrinkles on her dress. That beaver-tail thing on the left is her dress “waving behind her.”
It took awhile, but I finally pulled it back out again, and decided to take a shot at finally painting it. The thing is, I know what a town engulfed in flames is supposed to look like (not personally, but thanks to modern special effects), and that’s what I had imagined. But I can’t be the only artist whose work NEVER turns out the way they imagine. First off: smoky, cloudy things (like fire and, well, clouds) have always been difficult for me to paint. I do my best to sort of swish them around so they kind of look passable, but they just don’t make sense to my eyes. I just can’t translate what my eyes see. In my head, there’s a smoldering village and wonderful flames and light glowing and reflections and all that. That’s not always exactly what comes out.
But you know, I’m no Caravaggio, and this is what comes out instead, and I have learned over time to balance the high expectations in my head with what actually happens. I find it has its own certain little charm anyway. Whatever I imagine it COULD be would be nice, I’m sure, but THIS is where we are, and ACCEPTANCE is key. Loving where and what you are right now is key, at whatever level you are, in whatever you might do. And it’s so simple to do–it’s as easy as just appreciating what you have. Just get your ideas out in whatever way you can, and be happy for it. If you’d like to improve, work on improving, but don’t EVER curse the level you’re at!
So there you go–a lovely post about our mutual love of a fire-breathing-dragon queen, just before Thanksgiving. And I’m thankful for all of it. All of what? Yes, exactly–absolutely ALL of it. Even the smudgy bits.
And when our daughter saw the finished Khaleesi, she said, “OHHHH! She’s AWESOME!” …Then she stopped, looking at her for a moment, and said, “That was fun to draw. We should do that again.”
busy mockingbird 