bittersweet moment with water colors ...

[amma!]

. . .
i realised today while dd and i were painting that she sees painting as a process and is not at all concernes with the product. she is seeing that hse has used every color in the water color tray, what happens when she puts one color on to p of another etc.

then she asks me also to paint. me, i cant paint but i must paint something. so i ask blankly, what shoudl i paint and she tells me 'paint a swan'

"how do i paint a swan?" i ask.
she shows me. she helps me move the brush and there we have a swan. oh, if only i had known it was so simple!

then she paints something. she decides it looks like a tree and then gets some green to put at the ends of the branches and says, "here are the leaves."

oh no, what have i done ... now she has become representational with her painting as well....

(just sharing some thoughts .... i guess we were 'unschooling' - so posting here )

[greencurry]

I know that feeling of kind of seeing her losing her innocence and looking at the world in a different way. It's so hard not to let our own limitations impose on our kids! I try hard to let my daughter enjoy the process of art, playing, etc... but my own inclination to know "what are we playing, what's the name of this, what color should it be," etc, often creep into our interactions.

Just a few days ago she asked me to look at what she'd drawn, and asked me what it looked like. I tried to be as simple and objective as possible - " a circle with a line through it" (although even those concepts are representations). "No," she says "it's a bottle with a straw in it."

But then today painting watercolors I saw her making (what looked like to me) "random" "abstract" lines and colors. Maybe they can go back and forth between process and product.

[amma!]

yes, it is heartening to know that they probably can go back and forth, valuing each in its own right. probably we need to learn more about valuing the process too. in your example, i'd feel reassured that she was able to offer her own interpretation though it differed from yours. funny we have no doubt our toddlers can do this in so many other areas, but still we need to make sure we give space for it when it comes to learning, particularly art... i wonder if there is a disconnect here?