Sunday, April 17, 2011

Here's a little piece of my art

One day, Andre came home and told me, "I pity the p4s - they have to bring brushes, paint and newspaper this Friday."

"Why?" I asked, imagining the kids being tasked with some chore like painting a classroom.

"They have to do art."

It's a travesty but I managed to bear a son with an aversion to art. Maybe it's because it's yet another form of seatwork, something he obviously feels overshadows his life. His favourite subject in school, surprise surprise, is PE.

Last year, Andre found art tolerable in school because the teacher allowed them to draw cartoons all year round. In term 1 this year, his class was exposed to clay modelling, which he found quite fun. The kids were told to bring a photograph of themselves and use it to sculpt a clay model portrait.

This was Andre's self-portrait:

It's no masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination but still mildly acceptable. That is, until he was told to paint it. Then suddenly, the self-portrait metamorphosised into a grinning Kermit.

I also noticed that the smile had widened from the original, the nose had completely disappeared and one corner of the slab had broken off. Clay doesn't travel well, especially when squashed in a schoolbag.

"Why on earth did you paint yourself green??" I asked, wondering if he had secret Hulk fantasies.

"It's the only colour in my poster paints that I have a lot of."

Pragmatism over realism.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Andre...Andre.... you are so cute!!!

Chris

Anonymous said...

Shall I call your Andre-Kermit....greenie who is enviromentally friendly? :) Art is an expression so you are doing good.

qx

Anonymous said...

So far the posts about Andre always makes me smile. He does not look like purposely to be cute, he is just simply born cute!

~ my

ada said...

Great effort, Andre! Love it - choosing the colour that he has a lot of, hahaha! He definitely has a very practical (green?) head on his shoulders!!

Now, this thing about Hulk or Kermit!? I've noticed (observing Anthony) that boys really do have such 'wonderful' choices.. for some reason mostly in green - soldiers, Ben10, dinosaurs...

What are little boys made of? Frogs and snails and puppy-dogs' tails! ...Yeah, forgot the frogs! Better top up the green paint before the next Art lesson! :D

monlim said...

Thanks ladies, you are all so kind. When I'm not slapping my forehead, I sometimes have a good chuckle too :P

Ada: It's true, I never thought about boys' stuff being green most of the time, extending the soldier getup maybe??

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