Baldo by Hector D. Cantú and Carlos Castellanos for April 20, 2024

Why did Gracie want her Papi to look at it if she knew it was bad?

Sigh. Encouragement turns into criticism. I always encouraged my kids’ expressions in art of any form. So I turned out one son who is a great writer in short form, another son who dabbles into acrylics, and a daughter who provides support to the NEA and a local arts museum.

Sure more creative than coloring books. Now, they really kill any creative growth.

I never cared for overly effusive praise, either.

Gracie knows it’s awful.

“I know what I like, and I like this.”

She hasn’t learned to accept a kind compliment……..

We’re supposed to believe that she tried to make a good drawing and then thought it was good enough to show her dad while knowing it was bad? Huh?

Could be a modern art masterpiece.

Picasso reportedly said something like: As a child, I was told to paint as an adult, now, as an adult, I GET to paint as a child…

Gracie is a probably a genius in some area, just not art. So Dad’s statement is correct, a genius produced the artwork.

That looks developmentally like the work of a 3-year-old. I thought Gracie was older than that.

He’s just being a good dad.

You do nearly anything for your kids. Fact.

Learn to accept a compliment Gracie.

She just needs to find the art she is good at. I am terrible at painting, drawing freehand, sculpting etc.

But – I am very good at hand embroidery. I may have to use copyright free art to draw my work onto fabric or pre-printed designs on fabric, but I am generally rather good at the stitching.

I have been stitching since before I was 5 years old when my great aunt started teaching me. I have worked in a variety of different types of embroidery and threads and prefer traditional designs. I have demonstrated embroidery numerous times at our local 3 county, county fair. I also demonstrate embroidery at 18th century reenactment events several times a year (so much nicer – especially in hot summer weather than when I was doing the cooking demo over a open fire). Is it always done right – no, I sat and stitched for an entire afternoon at an event and for some reason was so stiff that it was not good and I took out all of that day’s work and redid it at the next event.

My mom recently celebrated her 95th birthday. I was not sure if my sisters were bringing her gifts to her party. I decided to stitch mom a piece to celebrate her birthday and the party. I found female and male stitch figures and copied onto paper with a male and female at the of the piece – husband and me, then Happy 95th on a line, then 2 males and a female – my youngest sister, her husband + his son on the next, then Birthday on a line and for the bottom line 2 females and 2 males for my other sister, her husband and their 2 children. I figured if they brought gifts I had one; if they did not it was just to commemorate the event. A month later she still mentions the piece.

But if someone asked me to freehand a person – they would be a stick figure.