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Impressive for an Eleven Year Old

Both of my boys seem to enjoy art, but my youngest is the one I refer to as "my artist".  While there's no denying that he enjoys playing sports and video games and doing all those other kind of things that little boys like to do, he's also the kid who is happy with a pen and a pad of paper.  

I'm not sure when we first noticed that he wasn't just content to color in the lines, but I know he was fairly young when he first attempted to draw his own lines.  At first, he traced images out of coloring books and magazines. Eventually, he started asking for "how to" books.

When I found Drawing Dragons in the bargain books at Borders, I was certain he'd enjoy the challenge of drawing such fantastical beasts. I was right.

I was also impressed. 



I'm not sure how old he was when he drew that eye, but I'm pretty sure it was at least a year ago.  Maybe more. Now, it'll likely come as no surprise that he didn't master the project in one sitting.  It took him days to get it just so.  He would draw, erase, draw some more.  Only when he was happy with it did he get out the crayons.  

While I think the end results were pretty amazing, especially for an eleven-year-old, what I found truly impressive was the determination and "sticking to it" attitude he displayed.  He didn't let his frustration convince him that he couldn't do it, that it was a hopeless endeavor.  

This attitude has stuck.  Only instead of using books to learn how to draw something, he's using Youtube to find videos on how to do the things he wants to do.  Here's a sample of his first attempt to manipulate a photo.  

Original image copyright held by eyongs.com.
He used a program called Gimp2 to change the colors and texture of the original photo.  Even though I know how easy this is to do with the selection tool and the gradient tool, I'm incredibly impressed that my eleven-year-old figured it out.  

After watching him do similar tricks with other photos, I remembered that quite a few years ago I had purchased a Fantasy Clip Art books and CD set.  I wondered if he'd like a chance to create a few characters of his own on the computer.  

After picking and choosing which elements to use from the CD, he got to "paint" the black and white images.  Here's what he came up with...


Maybe I'm suffering a bit of Mommy Pride, but I think my kid is freakin' awesome.  I just hope he pursues this artist side of himself because I'm really looking forward to seeing where his creativity takes him.  
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Comments

  1. Matt S11:48 PM

    Whoa! Your kid has some serious skills!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Krista Heiser10:29 PM

    Thanks, Matt! I think so, too.

    ReplyDelete

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