“Real Life” Painting

Since Stephanie and the boys took the bait and ran with it on the plein air whale bone sketching, I felt compelled to at least get the ball (or pumpkin) rolling on painting from “real life”.  Although Daniel Beard suggested sketching fish we opted for an easier subject; pumpkins.  Our California enclosed porch doubles as both cold storage for winter squash and children’s art studio.  This meant that there were plenty of squash within arm’s reach of the easel.  Seth was extremely enthusiastic about the idea of painting gourds and dawned apron and pink swim goggles in preparation.

SUBJECT 1: SUGAR PIE PUMPKIN

After clarifying the confusion about painting a picture of the pumpkin as opposed to actually painting the gourd itself we were good to go.  Seth selected a family of colors that reflected the colors of our pumpkin and construction paper still life.  We then discussed how the pumpkin had curves.  I painted one orange curve and he took it from there.

Seth was very engrossed in this exercise.  In fact, he painted an orange, red and green pumpkin including stems.  I’m not sure he checked back with our trusty still life during this process, but I think that is ok.  Considering this was his first attempt at drawing something from “real life” I was not going to micromanage.  I wanted him to go at his own pace hoping he would look favorably on the experience thus fostering repetition.

SUBJECT 2: HEIRLOOM SQUASH

Seth seemed equally excited about painting a second “real life” squash.  After a few glances he decided to make the squash very large on the canvas.  However, at this point his enthusiasm for “real life” painting was on the wane.  He dabbed some purple on the paper and began to talk about a storm.  He was depicting a storm that blew down a tree in our driveway last winter.  Then he turned to me and said, “This is the storm when I came downstairs and we got the divorce”.  Ack - I had to bite my lip.  Our squash exploration had become art therapy.  I am perfectly ok with art therapy, I simply need to be prepared for it.  This is a common issue with my parenting style, I am slow to switch gears and half the time I am not even in the right gear.  By the time I had collected my thoughts enough to engage, Seth had moved on to other topics in his usual narrative style and I was off the hook – phew!

His last orange strokes depicted a, “jet star bumping into rocks.”  I think this meant shooting stars that he saw in Death Valley over Thanksgiving.

After his second painting Seth suggested that he use modeling clay to make a “real life” squash.  He fiddled with this for a while and eventually his squash morphed into a snake.  I left him for a bit and when I came back he said, “Mommy, we cook the snake in the oven, then put it outside.  It will get air on it and become a ‘real life’ snake sculpture.”  I guess the “real life” idea sunk in - whale skeleton here we come!

I think that the imagination/draftsmanship balance is interesting.  As we grow older we loose the imagination and gain the draftsmanship.  Just something to think about in terms of our kids development and our own growth as parents/artists.