Sketches

Published on July 15, 2008

Today officially marks three more weeks left of my summer vacation. Can you believe it?!! I’ve already started thinking about lesson plans, project ideas, and club activities. I’m excited about going back. As stressful and draining my job can sometimes be, I have to fully admit that it is one of the most enjoyable jobs on Earth! I get paid to go to work everyday and use crayons, markers, paints, clay and tons of other fun stuff! I get to choose what we do, why we do it, and how we do it. And if I’m just having a terribly off day, maybe we go outside and draw! What other job can you do that with?

Working with young people has always inspired me. I steal so many ideas from just watching them create. So much of their work that they are disappointed with, because it doesn’t look exactly like something, are the pieces I fall deeply in love with!

Through my years of teaching I have piled up tons of ideas for stories. Many narratives I share with my students already. I’d love to one day crystallize my stories and illustrate them. This past weekend while playing around with my watercolors I started to draw a little girl. She came out of nowhere, just started out as a sketch.

As I moved from one sketch to another, she started to form a personality in my mind and take on a life of her own.

So many of the young girls I meet teaching are so quick to put themselves down. So many of them worry about appearances and weight at an age where I wonder if they can even count as high as the amount their little weights are at. At a young age, I see little girls afraid to voice their thoughts in class, worried that they may sound too dumb or even worse in their eyes, too smart.
I meet girls that the only hobby they have is shopping. They place all their value in what they wear and what they carry. They have no thoughts about what lies under the surface yet, and lacking other interests in their life prevents them from uncovering the beginning wonders of this great journey of self realization.
I’m not sure why I made these sketches, I’m not certain what story I’m trying to create. I just moved my pencil and paintbrush, and this young girl started speaking to me. I started to write down the ideas and words that came to me too. Somewhere there is a story needing to be told.
This watercolor is where my little girl used to live. Funny, it resembles many of the communities out here in Phoenix. Cookie cutter houses with postage stamp yards, each one looking exactly like the other one, with just the subtle of differences. And this watercolor is where she was moving to. I ended here. I’m interested to see where this story goes and to learn more of who this little girl is. To be continued…