Last Friday Big Pickle decided to draw. Not really a big deal for most nearly five year olds but this one has never really spent time on this activity. The odd drawing..... like three and they were a few strokes swiftly drawn and quickly moved on from. Play dough, paper mache, potato stamping, a spot of colour mixing on paper (his version of painting).......these were the artistic endeavours that previously interested him but drawing not so much.
The loveliest, best quality wax crayons, lovely wooden coloured pencils, short and long.....none of these drawing materials held his attention.
It simply wasn't his time.
However, straight out of bed on Friday morning, having come across some textas just before bed the night before, he began...
The car series came first. Wheels, windows with passengers inside, an exhaust pipe in the second drawing...... the first one is a four wheel drive, see the spare wheel? Picture number three is a car you sleep in hence the sidelong passengers.
He drew, and he drew and he drew. From seven in the morning until half past three that afternoon. Twenty minutes off to listen to a story with me....breakfast and lunch both eaten whilst drawing.
Roughly 50 A4 pages and then he requested "bigger sheets now please mummy" and he then produced another twenty odd large format drawings.
By now monsters had become a common theme too but the vehicular theme held for this one of a busload of people with cars travelling down either side. Sadly, the blue texta he was using was a bit tired so this one is very lightly rendered.
There was a story to go with this next drawing and he took time drawing it. The four characters at the top are hairy trolls and they are sitting on a bridge above a "spidery winged creature". The trolls are thinking they might go down and have lunch with the spidery guy but they night just battle him instead.... The blue troll is in charge and he is probably just going to kill the spider...
Despite the prevalent themes of violence and killing I love this one, mostly because of the beaming smile on his face when he finished it and called me over to see and hear the story.
On Saturday he continued, now drawing in a drawing book and with his new textas that I sourced for him on Friday afternoon as I saw that this eight and a half hour drawing marathon was filling him with such joy that he was undoubtedly going to continue.
The first is a duck and the other wondrous drawings are sea monsters.
All throughout Friday I kept gazing at my beautiful boy in awe and wonder. A little boy who is usually a constant whirlwind of movement and noise was quietly sitting, drawing picture after amazing picture and was so totally focused on his endeavour and beaming each time he completed his next work.
It was truly the most incredible, uplifting, remarkable thing I have ever witnessed and another opportunity for me to remember the blessing and privilege it is to be able to be home with my two boys and therefore to have a whole day like this to watch a whole new world open to him.
This morning before kinder he decided he needed to draw something for two new friends and so he occupied himself right to the moment of leaving creating a fully coloured in version of one of his snail drawings - note the amazing spiral shell below and the snails head protruding. The little picture next to the snail is a snail shell that's closed.
The colouring in process is meticulous, like a rainbow patchwork of perfectly matched coloured patches of irregular shape and size...... I continue to watch entranced.
