My Little Artist (and Maybe Writer)

Just this week at the playground after the co-op, the girls were hanging out and working on art projects.  I had no idea what they were doing, and didn't want to bother them, so I just let them be.  My youngest was a handful enough given he didn't want to eat, drink, or do anything.  He was just miserable.  I just hoped my daughter wasn't imposing herself on the older girls too terribly much.  No one seemed to be complaining, so I didn't even think to ask her about it.

When we were leaving, my daughter said, "We were making ATC cards.  Can I finish mine when I get home?" I had no idea what these ATC cards were.  She was holding out a little piece of card stock that she was drawing on.  I had no problem with her finishing that when she got home.  It was just another drawing, right?

The past few days she's been doing nothing but drawing.  I'm a little afraid she's going to run us out of art supplies in the house!  While I've got two boxes of crayons, some colored pencils (though the pencil sharpener is MIA), and a bunch of markers, we've been going through paper incredibly fast.  I don't know if I can keep up with it!

Not only is she drawing pictures, but she's coming up with stories to go with them.  She told me the other day that she wanted to be a writer some day.  I told her she couldn't just illustrate her books.  She'd have to tell the story too.  Maybe that will inspire her to work on her other skills too.  She's starting to become a really creative story teller!  Unfortunately, that means she's going through paper even quicker to keep up with her stories.  I wish I had an infinite budget for art supplies!  I'd keep her going as long as she's got interest!

My daughter isn't the best artist.  She's constantly complaining that she's not as good of an artist as the other kids in her class.  It's understandable.  They've probably been working on art projects a lot longer than she has.  We haven't spent much as much time on art as maybe I'd like, mostly because of how fast they go through paper!  She's also younger than a lot of the girls in her class, and I don't give her any solid direction.  I want her to draw what's in her mind, not what I tell her to draw.  If she wants to draw a bunny, I want her to show me what it looks like to her.  If she's going to draw a sunset, I want to see how she sees a sunset.  I don't want to tell her how to do it or how to improve her skills because I want her to come to it naturally.  If she asks me for help, I'm not going to tell her to figure it out on her own, but until she asks me for help, I'm not going to step in.  I always hated when my mom criticized my art, and while it did make me a better artist in the long run (not that I ever got all that great), I don't want my daughter to go through those feelings of rejection.  Instead, I'll try and give her as loose instruction as I can, giving her the general idea and then letting her figure out how she thinks it will work.  She doesn't need me cramping her style!

So the other day when they were all out there, they were working on something they called ATC.  I had no idea what they were talking about, but when I got an e-mail about the homeschool play group on Friday, it was mentioned again.  The house we're going to has a pool, plenty of space for kids to run, and there would be craft supplies because they want to do ATC again.

Having no idea what ATC was, I had to check it out.  For all I knew it could be like all the kids in one class busting out in the songs from choir that they all knew.  It could be some religious thing that my daughter was sure to miss out on, simply because she isn't raised that way.  I wasn't sure how I felt about her getting involved with anything I didn't know about, religious or otherwise, mostly because I want to be aware of what she's doing and what she's getting into.  Being something the co-op kids do, I couldn't imagine it would be all that bad, but it's got to be better than the trends towards those teen pop stars like Taylor Swift or that Justin Bieber kid.

As it turns out, ATC stands for Artist Trading Cards.  There's another version called ATEO, which is Artist Trading Editions and Originals.  Basically they're little trading cards that the artist decorates with the media of their choosing.  They can hand these cards out for trade or sell them for a profit.  The general idea seemed to be that these are small samples of your artwork to be shared among friends and other artists.  The cards can be purchased in packs, or they can be cut by hand.  Generally they're made of some sort of card stock, but it looks like there's all kinds of materials available on the market.

I'm thinking when I save up a bit of money I may need to get my daughter some cards to work on.  They're small, quick projects and the girls from the homeschool group all seem to do them.  This would be something she could share with them while working on her art skills.  She could hand them out to friends or send them to family.  They're just the perfect size for sharing.  They may be a little bit on the expensive side when compared to the cost of drawing paper, but I think it'll be worth it in the end.

My little artist has come so far, from not wanting to do anything with art for so long to living for it day by day.  We're going to have a lot to work on, and she'll have plenty of new opportunities to work on her skills in the future.  I've already got tons of ideas on what new art projects we can do.  Now I just need to find the infinite budget so we can do them all!