Artful Gifts: A Child's Perspective

My two Portland grandsons, Jackson and Emmett, spent a few days with us leading up to Christmas. One of our planned adventures was to make art in my studio and that is what we did last Wednesday. The project? For each of the boys to make a piece of art for their Dad. Emmett decided he would do a painting and Jackson wanted to do a story board of their road trip to Yellowstone last summer. It was amazing to see the differences between the boys, probably a lot to do with age, but also because of their personalities and temperaments. Emmett, who is four, was pretty free-wheeling with the paint and the vibrant use of color; this fits his personality for sure. Jackson, at seven, is more precise, calculated, and dare I say it? a perfectionist (damn that first born trait). Jackson needed a ruler AND an eraser and was quick to get frustrated when his art materials didn't cooperate. But in the end, both of the boys were satisfied with their creations (although Jackson took his canvas home and continued to work on it for the next couple of days).












After their hard work, the boys decided it was time to play with some of Whammie D's studio toys.


Mike opens the gifts from his boys!