My Son, The Artist.

I have to emphatically state that he did not get his artistic ability from me. I taught ninth grade science for fourteen years and whenever I had to illustrate something on the chalkboard, my kids would always laugh at my drawings. I quickly learned to warn them that I had trouble drawing stick figures. Thankfully, most of my illustrations were of the energy levels of atoms which only require circles.

My earliest recollection of drawing was being made to draw in second grade. My family was living in Chile at the time and I had to be homeschooled by my mother. The curriculum included art and I hated it. We use to have the worst fights about it. I would sit for hours and just stare out the window, because I just couldn't draw what they wanted me to. I remember the day my mother, exasperated, drew a simple flower and told me to just copy it.

My son on the other hand, now loves to draw. I am so glad he does. It took him awhile to catch on, but thanks to his buddy, Jaleel, he is doing quite well. I can remember just a few years ago when I would beg him to just sit quietly and draw or color. Nope. That was boring. I must admit that I think his interest was sparked by the fact that he lost the privilege of playing his DS and watching TV whenever he wanted to. But, even now that he can enjoy those privileges occasionally, he sometimes chooses to draw.Most of his drawings are of fish. He started out drawing just Blue Marlins but he has since branched out to drawing other types of fish.

He has found a website that has hundreds of pictures of different types of fish. He sits at his desk with the picture of a fish on the screen of his computer and draws it.

Here are samples of his fish drawings:

He and Jaleel have enlisted some of the girls in their class to grade their drawings. He got an A+ on this one.

Check out the detail on the above fish. I would not have the patience to draw all those little bitty marks on it.
Even though he draws mostly fish, he has branched out to draw other things. Here is some kind of super hero and the next one is of dinosaurs.

The first thing he showed his DeeDee when she arrived last Monday was his drawings. I just love his body language as she brags on how good his drawings are.
Nathan has never been a child to make messes or color on walls or anything that has required a lot of clean up on my part. I remember, my sister in law telling me that when her son was small he got a hold of a large jar of Vaseline and smeared it all down the walls of their staircase. Or when my cousin's little girl dumped out a bottle of baby powder. Several years ago, you can imagine my surprise when I saw the masterpiece Nathan drew with a Sharpie permanent marker on the white paper covered boards we had to set our Christmas tree on. My shock was that he found a black permanent marker, managed to draw himself and a reindeer and not get any of the marker on our brand new carpet we had just installed. All without me knowing it. The new carpet was so thick that the Christmas tree wouldn't stand on its own, so we set it on these boards. When I asked Nathan why he drew on the boards without asking he said, "Mama, I was just making it pretty." He was right. It is so pretty, the board with his masterpiece on it is safely stored in our barn at home. Don't you just love the antlers on his reindeer?