Poor Kid, I Put Him Through Hell

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At six fifteen this evening, after three hours with my 6B Berol, I finally saw through repeated photographs that the kid's chin was too short. I pounced on the drawing with my knead. He's looking a little less spastic and bucktoothed than he did fifteen minutes ago. I would have preferred to have gone swimming, but the temperature is 93 F and the dock is in full sun. I stuck with scrutinizing. I like the dark background I laid in this morning. Now to refine his jaw area and move on. There's still something with his upper lip I'm uncomfortable with? But there's tomorrow. I think I'd like a glass of wine right now. I really put this kid through hell and me too, but learned a few things and had an excellent session studying values.

Slowly, Slowly JD; Slowly, Slowly A Lake Craft

At this point, poor JD looks cross-eyed. His eyes are lacking mischief

Slowly, slowly slowly, I will correct his vision and I'm learning a lot about shaping two dimensional forms. Moulding the head ala Calle's method of lines reminds me of drawing the muscles in anatomy class. All the striations and overlaps. It wouldn't hurt to review  my  old anatomy book and drawings to really get a heads up on  Calle's drift. (Pun intended). But I'm liking the procedure. It's studied. It's cautious. It's calls for precision, a lot like designing.

A MILESTONE DAY YESTERDAY FOR MISTER R. Note the smile on his face as he puts his shoes\back on. That smile is because he's thrilled with himself. He walked down to the dock with me and right off the edge. It was his first plunge after thirteen years of living on the water and his first plunge into a lake since he was a kid at camp. Resurfacing, he couldn't believe the water was so clean and warm and lovely and he hadn't done it sooner. He felt just like I had felt last year.

If I hadn't had my boating incident, he wouldn't have come with me, but he thought I couldn't be trusted to go swimming alone even though the boat remains crumpled in the garage.  He did spot an electric motor on one of the boats in dock and I swam over to take a closer look. Our raft wouldn't do. We need a boat designed for such.  With Honey's new enthusiasm, boating may still be an option?

Looking Ahead

Detail JD' eyes. In pencil: HB, 3B, 6B. Note the fine lines. I made them with my
ruler matching us what was lined up with what. 

I might have bitten off more than I can chew. For someone who has just decided that portraiture was my thing, jumping from head impressions to a full body painting, might be quite a stretch. The act of an egotistical maniac perhaps? Nevertheless, I'm pushing on with this. I can see the painting.  It may take me some time to get there, but slow and steady. 

JD lightly penciled in with an HB

I spent yesterday  rereading Paul Calle's book, The Pencil. The artist, a very successful  freelance illustrator,  did admirable pencil drawings with visible strokes. He considered the camera as another form of sketching and took many shots of his subjects and things he related to his subjects. From those he selected not one but selected pieces from this one and that that would go together to form a good composition. Then did many preliminary drawings of the elements and cut them out and overlaid them to form the final reference collage. I am of that ilk. I do think preparation is everything. So far I haven't done that.  My painting of my three men was boldly right onto the canvas. The adjustments I made there were made as the canvas dictated. For this one, I want to know exactly where I'm going and how to get there. So my plan is to spend my evenings drawing JD till I know every inch. Perched on that railing, his body weight has to be believable. His playful gesture has to be full of the cockiness that attracted me standing there in the train station at the zoo the moment he hopped up there and crowed.

A portrait by Paul Calle, pencil work
to aspire to.

Charcoal is a fast medium great for first impressions, pencil, not so. Slow and steady and calculated. Last night I concentrated on my grandson's eyes.

 Paul Calle died in 2010 at 82. He workshiped Degas. Like Degas, He believed that the camera was a valuable tool even though early on in his career, other artists frowned on that. He called his multitude of photographs camera sketches. He took many pictures from many angles. He also transferred sketches using his own graphite carbon transfer sheet: completely blacken  the entire surface of a piece of vellum using a number 4B pencil, (I used graphite sticks for this). When finished, dip a wad of cotton into rubber cement thinner and rub the entire surface. This step "removes excess graphite dust and leaves you with a fine, even graphite transfer sheet" to slip between the sketch and the final drawing surface.  I've used this method many times. It's very handy. But mostly I do like polishing my free hand drawing skills.It's excellent eye/hand coordination and helps develop your own judgement.  JD's  head is being done free hand.

Getting A Feel for Portrait of A Boy

JD, second pass with 6B Berol. From this
rough spacing, the painting should be 24 x 30 or 48 by 60.
How ambitious am I?

JD first pass with charcoal.
I got the left arm much better. I'm freer with
charcoal than I am with pencil.

The first pass I made at JD was is the kitchen with charcoal. This one was done in the great room with a 6B pencil. I'm pinpointing strategic points. I'm learning what lines places his weight firmly on that railing. I'm seeing how I might break up the background. My thoughtful studies are seldom pretty. I draw line across the figure to find the right placement, note where emphasis will be needed when I get to the paint. I'm correcting and going over lines till I understand his stance. I only do this with figurative drawing. Landscapes and florals you can feel out and push them around for convenience. Not so with figures, especially when the objective is a reasonable,recognizable likeness. For likeness accuracy, a little geometry is often necessary.

My reference photograph, not dissected yet. Soon.
First free hand impressions. 

 I pulled out an old pencil book entitled (what else) The Pencil by Paul Calle. The last publication was in 1978; mine is from 1974. I liked how this fellow doesn't finely blend his strokes. I still like that fresh approach to the medium. The drawings are vigorous and energetic and alive. Of the moment. That approach pretty much describes how I like to make art. Accepting my impatience and letting it show makes the work mine, like a signature. The process shows through.

Drawing by Paul Calle. The values are all done with directional strokes.

Back on earth (art does lift me up and away), yesterday was full of hammering and computer glitches. First, half my text was wiped out with white lines; then, our provider went down, then, when service was restored, Ellis's printer wouldn't work and he had a three paper que up. Our final solution was to reinstall the printer, but that took a couple of hours of What do you think we should try next? The simple fixes did not work. By the time I got to JD, I was mentally exhausted for a person who got up with a song in her heart. And I should have been forewarned by it, for there sure was a lot of jazz going around here and nothing I would rough my knees for.

Ben Casey, Ben Casey Sure You Can Borrow My Cherry Picker

Dr Zorba doing his Sudoku puzzle

 One of the great things to come out of having to vacate my studio for a while was I've re-established a drawing drawer in the great room (nobody has a" living room" around here). It's stocked with 9 x 12 pads for graphite and ink. ( There was a lot more text and links to this post, but it's being whited out. Blogger is getting on my nerves). As for the video: I woke up this morning singing and dancing to All That Jazz. It's time to watch Chicago again.

My souvenir  from the Henry Ford Museum was delivered. They
put it in the back. They're very handy  to have around the house.

A Lot of Laundry; A Lot of Quiet.

Erin looking eleven and more like herself. What did I learn
from this three day struggle? I tend to make my noses too narrow. I
totally forgot there's an eye width between eyes. 

What do you do when you get up at 3:15 AM to hug, kiss and wave goodbye to loved ones? You cry a little. You go out on the deck and shoot a very early sunrise.  You throw some towels in the washer. Then get out Erin and tweak her likeness  till you can tweak no more. It's time to move on and say hello to my next project: JD again.

I've got my studio back. I didn't miss it much. Sketches like Erin, my Mom, a couple of pastels and a Sharpe drawing were enough in between sightseeing trips to everywhere. After a few more loads of towels and  a nap, I plan on wandering down and poking around. Maybe a little oil sketch? Maybe a watercolor I've have in mind?  Maybe tomorrow, after beds are stripped and sheets are washed? I'm at the dirty end of our most memorable vacation at home ever and it's too quiet!

The ruckus of a house full didn't cramp my production.  My output on the kitchen table between  family outings was respectable considering. A drawing was produced every other day and some cool memories were photographed in between. A good mix.

Young Mom, Charcoal. Best of show for artwork squeezed in.

Old Mom, graphite

A Puckish JD on an early summer night.. He maybe my next project.

Amsterdam looking Sharpe

Amsterdam looking garish. Worst of Show

The better part of a failed pastel drawing.

Roth men's favorite animal, the White  Rhino

Roth women's  favorite, the chimpanzee-- or is it a gorilla,? He looks kinda a big.
I'm a city girl.

The fire that broke out and caused some excitement among the blood
thirsty spectators at the NASCAR races in Brookline.  Sorry NASCAR enthusiasts,
but you know that a crash is what everybody is secretly waiting for to make those cars going round and round
the track for hours  much more interesting. this is Kelly's shot.

The Ford family's favorite: Henry's first model T (Tin Lizzie) in 1903. It was a prototype.
for the 1908 Model T

In 1930, the  Ford Motor came out with  a new model: the Model A (letters of the alphabet are so much easier to remember than those numbers and letters we use now to differentiate between different cars.

The designer/builder in me was attracted to the fabrication exhibit of the Eames Chair, designed in 1956 for the Herman Miller Furniture Manufacturing Company  in Zeeland, MI. It is still in demand today and sells for a little under four thousand dollars. That's high-end design for ya.

A couple of good drawings and a few interesting photos did not the vacation make. What made the long vacation at home great were the early morning chats we had with our son while the rest the family slept. Once a son marries and has children, it's damn hard getting to talk to him alone and hear about his world from his mouth as he sees it without interruptions or distractions. I loved that  old intimacy during our time together. We're going to miss that.

Kids' Last Day: The Titanic Exhibit At The Henry Ford

Me, JD and a last minute Ellis on the Grand staircase of the Titanic.

 We got up at the crack of dawn. Though my back and legs were still killing me from my efforts to make a young and fun impression on my grandkids over the last two weeks, I was going to go the the Henry Ford Museum at Greenfield Village come hell or highwater. The place opened at nine thirty. I figured we had to get there early while my legs had the get-up-and-got. We got there at ten thirty. Not a bad time considering six people, two of them the age who can never find their shoes, had to dress, eat and find their way to the car. Our destination was The Titanic Exhibition. Who would think that kids ages 12 and 10 would be so intent upon seeing the treasurers from a ship that sank so very long ago? Not me. I would have been okay with spending the day at the "pond."

The Henry Ford Museum was spectacular. Huge. The Titanic was a "traveling exhibition." in just a small section of the museum, which is dedicated to vehicles--trains, planes and automobiles (of course). I was restricted from taking my own photographs in the Titanic section; they wanted to make some money beyond the $150 we paid for admission. In spite of Honey's objections, I couldn't resist the additional cost of a photo on a replica of the grand staircase. After all, the staircase was the most outstanding work of craftsmanship on the great ship that sunk like a rock. And I didn't get up and get dressed and get out so early in the morning to not get the key photo of our excursion! Honey's a funny guy.

The photograph behind Jon's head is of the actual boarding of the Titanic.
Could one of those ladies in those grand hats been Maria? Maybe.

One of the most interesting things the museum did with this exhibition was to give every exhibition sightseer a boarding pass that bore the name of someone who had actually been on the ship.  I was Mrs. Victor de Satode Penasco (Maria). I was 17 years old, from Madrid, Spain. Victor and I were newlyweds on our two year long honeymoon.  In Paris, we had decided to extend our trip and travel on the Titanic to NewYork and back in spite of warnings from Victor's Mom that going on a ship on your honeymoon was bad luck. We were traveling in first class along with the Guggenheims, Asters and Straus'.  Victor was very wealthy.

Poor Ellis was in third class. He was Mr. Edward Ryan from Ballinareen, County Tipperary, Ireland. He was immigrating to Troy, New York where his sister lived; he hoped to find work there.

Charles Lindberge's plane that was the first solo flight from
New York to Paris in 1927. It was a single engine plane.

Of our group, only I was first class.  Everybody else was second.  Unfortunately, standing in line to board the exhibit ship, first class passengers didn't get to board first. I had to stand in line with the rest of riff-raff! Can you believe that. I was appalled. We had a great time imagining what it was like back then while we stood in the admission line.

At the end of the exhibit, you got to see if your passenger survived. The only one in our family group who didn't survive was Ellis. Mr. Edward  Ryan went down with the ship.  So did Maria's husband Victor. At seventeen, Maria was a very wealthy woman.

We had a memorable time. After the Titanic we walked through the museum of vehicles.

The 1956 Ford Thunderbird, a knock-out automobile out of Detroit

Edison's Dynamo Generator that was operable

JD and Erin pumping electricity from the Dynamo
into the Tower of Light. They could have used a stronger hand
to help. The dynamo had the capacity to light up the whole tower.
Awesome  exhibit. Edison's Menlo Park,laboratory is located now
in Greenfield Village. 

After lunch in Dearborn, Ellis and I went home to ice our knees. The kids went, would you believe, to the movies.  As I write, I just know they are going to want to go the the lake one more time. I'm going to watch, or maybe just wave them on to have a good last swim in a real lake, albeit a pond, after seeing Lake Michigan, the second largest lake of the Five Great Ones: Superior, Michigan, Erie, Huron, Ontario, the largest fresh bodies of water  in the world. Tomorrow, at 4AM  their Midwest adventure ends. I'll probably cry.

Framing Kelly: Packaging Image on Paper

Kelly set to go home in a rosewood frame from Frames by Mail

I was more than pleased when the frame arrived on Friday, a day or two shy of the five business day standard deliver. That gave us more than enough time to assemble it before the kids got home from Chicago. They should be back by late this afternoon. So Ellis and I spent the morning putting everything together--the drawing, double mat, non acid backing, cardboard back filler, non-glare Plexiglas and the deep,rich rosewood frame I've been anxious to see in person. The simplicity of it and its rich warm eggplant veneer with subtle graining gives the drawing the elegant finish I thought it would. It's a great birthday present.  I'm glad I decided I wanted it to be ready to be hung when they got it home. Frame stores aren't around every corner where they live.

 A little double mat arrived in the same package.  I got it for the hell-of-it. It's sized for shipping in an envelope via the post office. I got it for experimental purposes. I wanted it around to see if indeed a decent section of any daily sketch could be extracted from a larger drawing gone awry.  It can.  As alarming as it sounds, with the proper packaging,  poor images can be made to look sign-able  and saleable.

Linda's Folly

A raft seemed like a good idea, but Linda's Folly  is where it belongs: in dry-dock

We'll inflate it again when the kids get back from Chicago, but some serious discussion has to be had on where to store this thing down at the lake. In the shade is the answer. The sun did what you see, but the "floor"of the boat was not affected by the exposure. Ellis had no trouble pulling it out of the water by himself.
But will we be able to portage it back and forth when  it's full? I think we need a shade and a rock. The saga grows.

But I'd really  like another crack at this thing. My next trick will be getting back in the boat after diving off. I should do that while Jon is still here to rescue me.

The shot of Chicago Kelly took from window of the apartment
 the kids are staying in on the 40th floor. Cool

Candid Portraiture is No Cake Walk

Erin, Not a Mona Lisa Smile

I did more work on this last night, but I'm really not
liking the smile--enough so, that the drawing became just another sketch.as my strokes got less controlled, as I got more frustrated. Her smile isn't genuine. It's annoying.

 This morning I photographed it thinking at least fifty shots have to be taken to get a decent, photo of a person and preferably those shots aren't taken with them sitting in front of you and you saying "Hold it." Catching candid shots with people unaware you're there might be the way to go? Constantly taking pictures, people eventually would take you for granted--you'd become invisible.

Ellis, Suduko and Coffee

 Honey is my live-in model (at first, much to his annoyance), but he has become so used to me walking around with my camera to my eye, he never hears the sound of the shutter, never looks around to see what I was shooting. Here is a candid shot I took right after photographing my drawing of Erin. It's him in his morning quiet time. It's hardly an action shot.

 With portraiture, photography skills are as important to focus on as figurative painting and drawing. With the idea of hitting the road with my camera, I bought a new tote bag yesterday that will hold the camera as well as sketch book and pens. My plan is to get out a little more, shoot candids and scribble figurative compositions. If you see me, just ignore me. Eventually I'll go away taking your image with me. I 'll call for your signature on a release form if anything comes of images. --Portraiture beyond the studio setting is no cake walk.

POSTSCRIPT: I'm having the same problem as yesterday. I have to write in HTML mode and transfer to compose to break up the text. Positioning the photographs is a hit and miss--what am I saying. Getting the pictures where I want them is a total miss, which is very distressing for someone who used to manually layout a magazine.

Miss Erin Revisited. I'm Capricorn

You have to watch out for kids when you're photographing them with the intention of finding a reference photograph for a portrait. They have a phony smile they paste on as soon as they see the camera pointed at them. You see this smile in school photos a lot. It says, "Hurry up and take my picture will ya! I have something better to do" And you know the smile is phony. It's not in their eyes.

 The photo I'm using for this drawing, (the third attempt) isn't quit a phony smile shot. There is a wee bit of laughter in her eyes. So this drawing won't be the best of Erin, but I will give it my best nonetheless, (drawing, no matter what, is an exercise that must be exercised). At this point, I'm just laying in the likeness and the grays using the grid system. I made the photo a bit darker so you can see my construction lines.

I have the time to draw slowly this weekend. The kids have taken a vacation from their vacation. They went off to Chicago and to Six Flags. Kelly is a roller coaster enthusiasts and supposedly the Illinois Six Flags amusement park has the greatest roller coaster in the country. There's a fifty foot drop in it! I told her about her brother in-law's vertigo and how he got the unamusing malady that keeps coming back after the same sort of amusing ride at Cedar Point in Ohio more than four years ago. But I don't think she'll listen. " Can't happen to me" has been the doom of many of us on the planet.

 In spite of all your warnings, I went back into the lake, but not in the boat, (which is dying a slow death due to heat exposure. Boo hoo). We decided to take a swim before they hit road. On this swim, I learned swim noodles in a lake can be as treacherous as rafts BUT YOU DON'T KNOW IT. All I did was ride it like I do my bike for an hour and a half while the kids jumped in and swam around me. Today, I’m as stiff as a board. I over cycled. I love the water, but have been a pool swimmer. There's a big difference between the volume of water in a pool and the volume of water in a lake!

The water was glorious and the kids had a great time though. JD said he was not going any further from the dock than two feet. He doesn't like to swim where he can't see the bottom and what wildlife is swimming with him. So I paddled out about thirty feet and taunted him to come get me. He did--riding his noodle of course. I doubt he's as sore as I am today. He has the blessing of being twelve.

I'm trying this again--first in HTML, not transferred to compose.   In HTML, I managed to get all the copy and the photos to publish (I think), I couldn't separate the paragraphs and though the photos are in this post, they are not exactly where I wanted them to be. They are where Blogger put them. But I didn't spend a couple of hours this morning to let this go. I also lost the captions in this rendition--and the comments plus my replies. Thank you John, Katherine and Christine. I appreciated your kind words.

Gotcha Miss Erin! Smirk If You Want To Part 1

Miss Erin Smiling, but not. There's a whole post
that goes with this drawing, but Blogger is not working properly.
I'm getting no copy. Just white lines and this caption. So test
your eyes. Can you really read as small as 18K gold? --Didn't work.
I'd have to retype this whole thing in this tiny caption point. I 'm going for
breakfast. I'll try again tomorrow with more of the drawing done.

Had another idea: photographs and captions only. Didn't work.
My Blogger is jumping around like crazy.  I just hate that I spent an hour
composing the greatest post ever written and you will never get to read it.
That's right Erin, smirk.

Sharpe in The Kitchen

Sylvester, woodcut print, #1 of 10.

The kids were watching  Titanic.  Their parents and honey were napping. I was hanging in the kitchen waiting for the breakfast dishes to go through the dry cycle so I could get on with the lunch dishes. There were ladders blocking us in and guys up on the roof replacing rotted boards on the chimney. I figured I might as well draw. I decided I wanted to draw with something clean. The only pen  I could find was a Sharpe Fine Point.    The reference photo  by Kathleen Whittaker, Art Director for Tauck  World Discovery Tours was still on the table.  I thought I'd take another pass at it. The drawing came out looking like a woodcut. It would make a very nice one, but not by me.

The only woodcut I ever made was a portrait of Sylvester Stallone in 1976.  I used a white oak block.  It was pretty good for a first try. I was going to send it to him, but never did. I still could, but won't. Too complicated.  And I never made another woodcut either. Carving  the plate made my thumbs ache (even though white oak is a relatively soft wood) and that made me think I was flirting with arthritis. Arthritis in my hands was to be avoided at all cost. So far, so good.

Pastel Impression

Dutch Blue

Somewhere in Holland there's a city street on a canal that has what looks like a blue apartment building with yellow window and door casings. and a red orange roof.  It must be a notable tourist attraction for I found the reference photo in a Tauck tour publication.  The colors got me. I tore the photo out and used it to further explore pastels as a sketching medium.  I definitely need to renew my supplies, but the texture of my paper is fine.  I could use more grayed down colors. This drawing is  garish--too primary. I seem to be out of whack these days. I haven't a clue why. Makes me sad. I think I'll give this up till tranquility returns to my household. I say that, but I won't be able to. I need to make my marks to keep myself myself.

Quit Pressing My Buttons Kid!

Morning Coffee on The Deck, 2012, 4 1/4" x 8"

Yesterday's pastel cropped. Ah ha! A method of making small paintings finally mastered thanks to JD pressing buttons he should never have touched on the TV remote. He lost the picture.He whined. He complained he can't fall asleep unless he's watching TV. The only way to get his cartoons back was to find the remote that came with the set.

 I went through every drawer and every shelf in the room.  Point of first use is my storage motto. The remote was no where near the set. It was just gone.  All that I found in my design  file drawers was the split mat I use for cropping. I took it and applied it to yesterday's spontaneous, but rather rambling  pastel and voila! A little painting 5" x 8"matted for an overall size of 9" x 12"". $65 bucks double matted at Etsy's!

Making little paintings from big, not particularly successful endeavors, is perfect for me who finds working small claustrophobic. We all know there are successful passages in overall unsuccessful pieces .  There's always something to save.  Split mat corners help find it. Every studio should have a a couple of sets.

Lazy Day Pastel To The Tune From Jaws

Morning Coffee with Pastels

Brutus Roth

It was a delightfully sunny morning on the deck with my pastels. Then the clouds came in  and brought the rain.

Our plans to go swimming with the kids while their parents were at the NASCAR race got changed to watching every Jaws movie ever made. The monotony of  a multitude of teenagers screaming and getting eaten by the  thirty five foot mechanical beast was broken when Uncle Steve came by with Brutus who was delighted to have young children fawn over him. I was delighted that they whacked him out long enough for me to take a  a relatively decent photo.

The dog is really sweet. How could anybody abandon such a beauty? There must have been an economic
catastrophe where he was sacrificed for the welfare of the family. He might be my first dog portrait.  There's money to be made in them there hills. People love portraits of grandchildren and  pets.

Painting with pastels was sweet too. Plenty of spontaneity.  I  think  I prefer them to watercolors for small works. They suit my temperament...My grandson just sat down at the piano and played the chords from the Jaws theme!

He has never played the piano before. When he couldn't figure out what came next, he moved on to play a series of chords: major, minor, diminished, augmented. (Follow the link if curious about what those terms mean).  He then chose one and started to make up the melody with his right hand.  Erin shouted," JD shut up!" I didn't say a word. keyboard  for the holidays was what I was thinking.  

Gotta Have It.

Isn't this Yin and Yang or  a Mandala or something mystical?
This just came off the kid's finger out of his head which is totally
unschooled in spiritual things. I thought Bill Cook of William Cook's art
would find this doodled design  interesting.

JD's iPad Oeuvre

I 've got to sell some paintings and buy some iPads for my grandkids. They've got to have the latest, greatest art pad of their era. Since they've been here, JD has used mine nearly everyday. This top design tells me the kid has ability that's worth nurturing.  It's more developed than his first works. Sophisticated

actually--though subliminal.

Until my iPad, he didn't draw. He played video games, soccer, football, wrestled--all the stuff that all the other kids do in after school programs that cost a fortune, turn parents into coaches who actually think they know better than real coaches , and send the kids to physical therapy before their time, (I was the oldest person in PT last year. The rest of the patients were nine years old through high school age. All sports injuries).

JD's Yellow brick road, which would lead him out of this mad house
to somewhere where no adult was telling him he can't go to Game Stop.

You saw this first try with the iPad. I thought I'd show it again  since
it's in  his iPad oeuvre and does display his fearless use of color.

Untitled. But  it may be a portrait?This looks like some
sort of TVcartoon character I've surfed  by. Why do all
of them gave square heads and sponge pants--Oh I get it!

A positive and negative look at anger. JD's developing his first
series. It has to do with his feelings towards his sister who does
tend to get a bit bossy and hoggish and insistent on having things
her way.  Art is a wonderful way for kids to speak their minds
in a very personal language.

This artwork was done by JD's dad, my son Jon, thirty five years ago when he was ten.
The devil jumping out of the sky is Jon. The kid on the balcony is his oldest brother Steve.
The shorter kid below is his brother second oldest brother Mike and his target. The two shared
a room, but Mike never let Jon in.What I like about this picture is it's expressive nature.
The house is on fire. (I'm guessing Ellis and I are the house and we're on fire because he obviously didn't think
 we stood up for him as much as he thought we should). NOTE the structure of
the roof. That's the outstanding part. Not only does the chimney suggest there's a complicated roofing system,
but it has two plumbing vents in it! Unusual things in a ten year old's drawing.  Today, Jon can build any structure.

Art can tell us who are children really are and what they are thinking about stuff. I encouraged it at home as did all of you I'm know. Mine were allowed  in the watercolors, the crayons, the paints, the pastels, the clay. 

I wanted them to find the freedom of expression available to them with those things. The rest of the world our kids lived turned art off. They cut it from their formal education. They kept music,  (or who would play in the band at HS football games and later in college), but not the art room with it's fantastic smells of paints and glues. Luckily, our art museum has a children's program every Sunday.  If it rains today, that's where we'll head. They're teaching mosaics and pottery. If the pot falls and won't hold flowers. it's a great spoon rest. Don't need a spoon rest? How about a paper weight? Art teaches you to be humble, be proud, be flexible, be creative, be free.  AND IT ALSO MAKES OUR HOMES MORE DECORATIVE, --Okay, I'll get off my soap box and see if the kids are up.