Vincent van know-nothing

It was a dreary, rainy afternoon in our part of the world last weekend. Didn’t feel like June at all. My wife was enjoying a (well deserved) afternoon at the day spa. I’m home with Chris and Tommy, and we’re all bouncing off the walls.

I’m the first to admit I’m not good with the kids when we’re stuck indoors. Let me play outside and I’ll go all day – we’ll go to a park, ride scooters, throw balls around – anything outdoors and I’m ready to go. But when we’re stuck indoors I just don’t have the skills my wife does to invent things to keep the boys entertained. I usually resort to pillow fights or other rough-and-tumble activities which, more often than not, result in someone getting bonked on the head.

But that afternoon divine inspiration struck. I said to the boys, “Let’s color some pictures!”

They both thought that was a great idea, so we got out the crayons and paper and sat down to draw.

My thought was I would give a little art lesson. That would provide some structure to the activity and I thought they might like learning how to draw some of their favorite things – a fire truck, a monster truck, the Camping Machine.

Who am I to teach an art lesson, you ask? Well, while I’m no Rembrandt, my undergraduate degree is a BFA and I did attend Pratt Institute in NYC for a year. I can draw a fire truck that most people would at least recognize as a wheeled vehicle of some sort. And anyway, I’m talking about teaching two boys, age 4 and 2.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King.

So we sat down to draw, and I said, “Daddy will show you how to draw a fire truck.”

“Great, Dad,” was the reply.

I gave a simple play-by-play as I drew a rectangle, with little circles for wheels, a square for the cab and a squiggly hose. Chris and Tommy diligently worked away on their versions.

Chris finished first and said, “Take a look at this fire truck!”

It was a random scribble.

Tommy said, “Mine too!”

His was also a random scribble.

Last time I saw a fire truck, the basic shape of the thing was primarily rectangular, with wheels that were, as near as I could tell, round.

Maybe they just aren’t getting it.

“Let’s try again,’ I said.

So I drew another one, more slowly, more carefully. Actually it was excruciatingly slow and painstaking. And I was very precise in my explanation of how, exactly, Chris and Tommy could do the same thing.

This time Tommy finished first. “Dad,” he said, “I think I got it!” He showed me his page – a wild, crazy mass of scribbles.

Chris had gone extreme. Far more scribbles. This time he used multiple colors.

“Dad,’ he said, ‘you’re truck is kind of boring. Look at mine. See how fast it’s going?”

“Look at mine, Dad,” Tommy said, “It’s spraying water on the fire!”

So I took a good look at their drawings. I took another look at mine.

And the light bulb over my head finally turned on.

Chris and Tommy did, in fact, draw fire trucks. They drew them the way they see them, a flurry of activity, full of excitement, adventure and motion. They captured the essence of the experience that seeing a fire truck race down the street means to them.

I drew a box with two circles.

We did accomplish the one thing I set out to do that afternoon. An Art Lesson was definitely given.

Instead of being the teacher, I was the student.

It’s great to be The Family Man.