Charlotte’s Rediscovered Confidence in Art

Charlotte was quite handy with any type of art until just before Sophie’s arrival and then she changed her focus to construction, cutting and pasting. Just when we were beginning to worry about her recession to scribbles she has bowled us over this week with a couple of ‘masterpieces’. Every parent must recall the first piece of their child’s artwork which struck a chord. This week we’ve had a couple of masterpieces to leave that warm fuzzy feeling of pride, awe and love in our hearts.

She created this at Kindergarten and was very enthused by the ‘hot gun’ used to attach the beads to the shell. The teachers report referenced Charlotte’s precision and attention to detail. Oh yes, she can be quite a little perfectionist (even anal!) with her ‘creations’!

And with our long stretch of good weather turning at the tail-end of this week we’ve found the creative urge contagious. Charlotte’s rainbow/umbrella painting from Kindergarten has led us to create some colourful ‘robot’ finger puppets.

Poor Sophie gets a little frustrated at wanting to be able to do all that Charlotte does. She shows the same determined, independent streak of Charlotte and doesn’t accept help easily. She really wanted to stitch a finger puppet by herself. After a little struggle she finally accepted a little ‘teamwork’ with me pushing the needle through and her pulling. She very much enjoyed getting mucky with the glue and sequins.

Later on, as we were packing up all the toys prior to bath-time, the girls delighted me by wandering off to the ‘art room’ (aka laundry room) and sitting down, without any suggestion, to do some drawing with pastels. I walked in to put on a load of washing and was greeted by two concentrated expressions in the midst of some awesome creations.

Charlotte’s ‘elephant’ is definitely worthy of a framed spot in the hallway: