Tag Archives: creativity

From Goddess to Victim in Seconds Flat

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The little goddess was bored after several days stuck mostly inside because it was too hot and humid (for this family, anyway) to go do anything outside, even visit the beach 15 minutes away. She was getting poopy, and so the wife sent her and me outdoors (since mama wasn’t feeling all that well…hmmmm…convenient…oh, OK, she legitimately wasn’t feeling well but let me get my dig in because I didn’t want to go outside and I got bit four times even with bug repellent on!)

*ahem*

Anyway, that’s how we ended up outside with my wee deity spending most of the time doing chalk art. She’s always loved doing it, but one of the artists who volunteers at my wife’s neighborhood center for local youth has been sharing more than just indoor arts and crafts skills with my daughter (who likes to go to the center a day or two each week so she can distract mom from running the place as executive director), so she was really into it.

Also, she was not pleased with the ants walking across her art as she felt their feet would mess her work up somehow. So, she exhaled on them with all the fury of a very mini femme version of the Big Bad Wolf, actually blowing them away, and taunting them with threats like, “How do you like that hurricane? Want more?”

After she had vanquished the ants whom she simultaneously praised for being fans of her work even as she cursed their trespassing (so like a deity, right?), she had this to say:

Yeah, take it like a maaaaa-aaaaan! That’s right: go home crying to your maaaa-maaaa! That’s what you get for crawling on my art!

Less than a minute later…

“Ahhhh ahhhh aiieeeee! Oh! No!” (as she jumps away from a harmless beetle buzzing around then tries to leap away from a mosquito that was already on her ankle attached and sucking).

Such a harsh goddess one moment, and then a panicked child the next. But, anyway, how’s about I share the art with you:

chalk-art_July2013_01The object in the center I assumed to be a golden delicious apple on a table. The petite goddess told me I was wrong. I then guessed pumpkin. Then, after informing me it was an orange, she drew the pumpkin on the left so that I would understand what a pumpkin looks like, apparently, because I’m a mortal dunce. The tree on the right was just bonus material for the director’s cut version of the DVD, I guess.

chalk-art_July2013_02Random yellow smiley face with purple eyes and smile. I know it’s not the sun because no way would my daughter draw a sun with no rays coming out from it.

chalk-art_July2013_03Even though we didn’t see Fourth of July fireworks (don’t worry, just a couple weeks before, we saw a big fireworks show for our local La Kermesse festival)…and even though the fireworks people were illegally setting off in our neighborhood on Independence Day were scaring her, my girl produced some of her own in chalk form.

chalk-art_July2013_04Not sure what kind of flowers these are, but they’re pretty, and the butterfly ain’t bad either.

Future Foodie? Budding Artist? How About Both

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I know I’ve alluded to it before, but the little goddess is really getting into drawing. She’s always had a love of painting (paper, rocks, shells, her one male baby doll Bubba) and she loves to craft things (though she still needs to learn that tape cannot stick everything together)…but the drawing is something different. She’s done it as long as any of her other art, but this is the medium which she has begun to pursue most diligently and with the greatest success.

I don’t know how to compare her artistic skills to other kids in the 7- to 8-year realm. I know many of her reading and writing skills (though not all) are already a year or two above her grade level, but drawing is trickier to gauge. But why compare against any standard anyway, right? She’s a damned goddess.

Anyway, the detail of her drawings, including the vampire cat people that I will have to share with you all one day, is amazing to me. One of the things she most seems to like drawing, though, is food (ironic, given how picky an eater she is). Given that I have a headache right now and have to do a phone meeting later, I’m going to pass on heavy thinking or attempts to be fantastically witty today and just skip to the cute:

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But she’s not just a foodie illustrator. So here are a few more that aren’t food focused (though she still slips edibles in there, doesn’t she?) before I let you go back to your real life…

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All In the Presentation

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So, I try to occasionally go that extra mile so that my daughter can get some kind of tangible evidence I love her, since I don’t know if the mere expression of love through kind behaviors, hugs and tucking her in every night is quite enough for her. One day in fall 2011, she was being a bit persnickety about eating lunch, so I tried to dial into creative skills other than my writing and editing skills, since I was pretty sure a well-worded note about eating lunch wasn’t gonna cut it.

So, I made her this lunch:

Hamicorn-lunch

That, folks, is a hamicorn, and a tasty example of the species, I’m sure. A body and head of ham, with horn and tail of carrot julienne, legs of dill pickle and eyes of blackberry, traipsing under a full moon of ranch dressing across a field of pretzel sticks and blackberries (those ones aren’t eyes…that would just be *gross*…as well as suggest the hamicorn had just used its horn to pluck out the eyeballs of rival hamicorns…jeez, how do you people get such sick thoughts in your head?)

She loved this lunch. So much so that I was inspired (nay, compelled and forced, rather!) to do similar visually stunning lunches for several days thereafter, and periodically over the course of several more months. Occasionally, she remembers this meal and entices me to do something similarly ambitious again.

Sadly, though, none have matched the creativity of this effort (though copying prior meals seems not to matter to my little goddess…devouring one hamicorn to sate her divine and ravenous hunger was enough, apparently).