The First Crayon

When did you pick up your first crayon?

We''ve been talking at the  B'sue Boutiques Creative Group  Discussion Board  about being  published, and taking the baby steps in our endeavors until we reach the place where we might wish to submit work for publication.

Baby steps is where it all begins!

In the meantime, I really must submit:  being published is not a prerequisite to being an artist.  My guess is that some of the best artists in the world are unpublished and none of us know about them.

How sad!  But it could be because they have so many personal misgivings that they have trouble promoting their things or letting the world in to enjoy their creativity.  It could also be that they are ahead of their time, on a new creative plane, and the world does not yet 'get' their art.  Perhaps someone has made fun of them.   So they retreat.

That is SO sad!

Let's reason on this:

A little child with a crayon is an artist. In time, he learns to color in his coloring book, inside the lines, neatly. He is now a better artist.

Soon, he says, let's get rid of the coloring book, I'm drawing my OWN picture! The first one is amusing....but in time, he challenges himself to draw a better and better picture, taking note of shadow and light and form. The pictures are getting really good.

So he gets a little bolder, and now he is using acrylics and painting things that appeal to him......even bolder still, now he uses oils. Not yet satisfied, he turns to varied substrates, collage, encaustic art......whatever. The process continues and continues.....

But he was an artist when he first picked up the crayon and began to scribble.

I've got to say it again, and for those of you who do not yet believe it, my fond hope is that one day you WILL:   all of God's children are artists.    Creativity is innate in humankind and it manifests itself in many ways.    Some are creative in the arts; others are creative with invention; others still, like Albert Einstein, with math and abstract thinking.

Many of the 'greats' were mocked for their art, still more were never discovered until late in life or even, posthumously.

I hope you will discover and rejoice in your first crayon....and advance to it a full box, a box that is fully used and explored, worn down to nibs because your ideas have taken flight.

You MAY indeed call yourself an artist.  We all are.

Comments

[Brassy Steamington]

I probably picked up my first crayon at age 1 or 2. But I am 100% sure there were many things done with that crayon (some that required medical assistance) preemptively to the crayon hitting paper. This most likely included walls, my crib, my diaper (do not ask), my nose, my ears and that's as much as I can share without embarrassing myself.

Crayons were something to be manipulated (little blooming Steampunk that I was). The melted crayon was magic in my eyes, the rainbow crayons that Mom made from the little bits and pieces of broken ones that I looked at with tears just an hour before, were much coveted. Crayons in silly putty, crayons put into candles, crayons that smelled like candy, crayons that were made for coloring on the walls in the bathtub.

-Oh the joy of crayons.

~ Dr Brassy

[Brenda Sue]

My yes.....don't they use melted crayons in encaustic work? I'll have to get my book down....When Jordan took the class w Linda and Opie last May they used melted crayons. Ah, that distinctive smell!

[Candy W.]

I don't remember when I first picked up a crayon, but do remember at about age 6-7 the wonderful realization that you can do shading, by the pressure you applied. It was like getting more colors with one crayon. ...The other memory I have, not sure what age, but it's when I learned how to take scraps of crayon, like those left over from sharpening your crayon and placing them between two sheets of waxed paper. Ironing the sheets of waxed paper and getting really neat designs and colors :)

[Tricia]

I had a sky blue metal lunch box filled with crayons! Or... crayon parts really. One year my son melted crayons all over his Pinewood Derby car and named it the Vomit Comet - it won Judge's Favorite AND came in 3rd place! Ahhh... ~~T