ToCreate.Art.blog

I come from a decent-sized family.

Without going into the twelve aunts and uncles and the forty-something first cousins, and the hundreds of extended cousins here in the States, as well as overseas (Belgium), I will just delve into my Aunthood.

I have exactly two nieces and six nephews. All but one niece and one nephew live near enough for me to see them on a weekly basis.

I have already begun being accepted into the family as a respected aunt, and for that I am grateful. Also, I am known as the painter. “Not a professional painter, but a good painter,” as one of my nephews explained to one of his teachers.

I’ve painted with two of my nephews already, the two youngest from different sisters. They are somewhere around 8 or 9. I’m afraid to ask again as that would indicate I wasn’t listening the first two or three times they told me already. I just forget easily.

Painting with Nick, my baby sister’s baby, he preferred painting his own things after I showed him the ropes of keeping his colors clean, paintbrush basics, and cleanup. I just let him go. No other direction. I painted my thing, he painted his.

He painted specific things for specific people, in a mostly abstract style. For example, one with hearts and a blue background, another was a music note, and another with just words.

Painting with Brady today, however, he wanted a painting lesson.

Whew, I am not good at playing the teacher role, but I know I needed to exude confidence to match whatever his mind compartmentalized me into.

In my mind, I see myself as an older Aunt – maybe a little on the crazy side – with a shelf FULL of paintbrushes, a LOT of paintings, all kinds of paint and containers, and a paint-spattered easel, stool, and tarp area that might look dungeon-like to an eight-year-old.

I am an Aunt whose hands and arms and fingers (and sometimes legs and feet, hair and face) are always “dirty” with paint. An Aunt whose clothes are well-worn, and dotted-and-dashed with different colors.

I was asked today, “What is that all over your shirt?” Paint.

So, with Brady, as I did with Nick, I started with explaining the colors, the different types of paintbrushes, and also a very basic color mixing “lesson”.

Brady asked if I ever painted a beach and water and rocks. I think he was trying to tell me he wanted to paint a beach scene. I tried finding my own seascape paintings, but ended up just starting the painting and going from the top of my head. Beach scenes are easy enough.

My worry: I’m just not a very good teacher.

We used the same canvas size and the same colors, for the most part. We started with the sky, then painted in the water, sand, a tree, and some rocks and seashells.

He had some painting experience from school, so we kept up our conversation throughout our painting process.

My worry of not being a very good teacher was masked by his talk of his art class and teacher, and “when are we going to paint the rocks.”

So, cool. I got some Aunt-Nephew bonding experience and he got to paint a real beach scene to take home.

Have you ever painted with youngsters, whether they were your family or you are a real-life teacher? If you have any pointers for properly encouraging and teaching the art of art, I would love to hear them. Leave a comment below.