Crayons are not just for kids!

A fellow hubber, one of the super sweetest people I've met on here wrote a hub and it sparked an idea! I tossed it to her and she said to get on it! Write a hub about it! :) So, here goes!

Well, I named this "Who said Crayons were just for kids-WRONG" because I realized that since I do love art, and I have quite a few drawings I've done myself, that I also had quite a bit of fun teaching a little girl I knew how to shade and make corners and edges darker, and I guess over all experiment with different things!

She loved coloring so much that I was out shopping and... well, can't pass up the "Crayola" isle when you know a child who LOVES ART and loves to color! It'd just not be right! :) I'd colored pictures with her from her book and we actually had a great time, but when I found out, Crayola doesn't just make "any old color now" they make GLITTER CRAYONS? METALLIC CRAYONS? Oh my, where was this in my growing up! lol. Coloring and drawing with her opened a new world to me as well as help her, and seeing her little face GLOW when she saw the pictures actually glittering was just so heartwarming!

So I colored a few pages or her while she had to go to sleep and I baby sat for her, but when I baby sit, I can NEVER sleep! Not even with the baby monitor by my ear! LOL.. I stayed awake until her mother came home, and then I'd usually zonk when I knew she was in the door. I stayed in the back bedroom so being two rooms away there was no way I would be able to sleep if her or her little brother fell asleep and had a bad dream or cried! I had to be there in an instant! Well, the children and I got a bit attached a to each other, and I'll miss them forever.

It was near Christmas and she brought a tree she colored in and said "Please keep this so you don't forget me when you have to go back home." Aw, how sweet! I told her nothing could ever make me forget her or her brother, they were special kids and I loved spending time with them!

Well, luckily I got a few snaps of the things I made for them while they slept! I'm glad I did because when I look at them it just gives me a good feeling that I know they (especially her) will never forget me for getting her, her own huge Crayola TOWER of crayons, with a built in sharpener, not the 64 boxed kind, but this comes in a big plastic tower! And a MUCH BETTER sharpener!  I also taught her that when a color would start to get a flat edge, that you would still have a corner, so it wouldn't waste the crayon! Just tip it to the side, and there's more corner! She did great! Well, I also got her and her brother each a plastic folder and kept it in my room so that when I left it would be the last thing to give her, so she would not forget that someone took the time to make things for her while she slept! :)  Her favorite colors are purple and pink, and strangely enough mine is purple and her brothers was green, so I made a few different ones and the folders matched!

Here are a few examples that I got snaps of, I hope you enjoy them and learn from them, for your child or even if you babysit, I cannot post the photos of the children, they are not mine to post, although to see that face light up is quite a sight when you know you're the one who made them that happy! There's no feeling like it in the world. I'll miss them both forever! :) or :(

I didn't really get a chance to play with the colors at this point, but it was Christmas, and by the time her and her brother woke up I wanted to put these on the tree. I made him one of Peter Pan.

I could have done a better job on this, lighting was a problem, but I slightly colored the waist inward, to show that Tinkerbell wasn't just one color, she had depth and I can see I got out of the lines myself! lol. But I did the best I could with what I had at this point, and across the bottom, as I cut it out of the page, I left a To: and From: at the bottom! I cut a slit in the top and brought some ribbon through it and put a slice so it could hang on the tree! I couldn't crop out the Peter Pan one quite as easy so maybe I'll add it on later, but for now, I'd like to get to the better ones! This was just one awe she saw that next morning!

If you look closely at the wings you can see the glitter yellow I put closer to the edges to give just a slight hint of shading, but not to color in a wing too much, after all they are supposed to be clear! :) but not our Tink, she had pazzaz! Glitter wings! I even rented the movie that came out, and just watching her see it on the big flat screen was amazing as they didn't have a flat screen tv and I was going to be there or a while so I brought mine, and it was color like they'd never witnessed before!

He was only 2 so he wasn't really into the coloring, but I thought this one turned out pretty good, and he loved it! As you can see it went into his green folder!

This coloring book was called "Stained glass" so you could see color from either side! Well, regardless of if Cougars aren't supposed to be yellow :) THESE GUYS WERE GETTING COLORED!

I don't see the glitter show up as much as it did on the original piece! But I wanted it to be more than just plain colored! So I used contrasting pinks and purple/blue for the flowers, making sure the stem was green (glitter/metallic) and the animals different shades of gold. They looked rather fierce so I knew this was to be the boys picture from me! I didn't get the depth from the feet as much as I wanted, but I was pleased with the flowers the most. If you look at them just right you can see a bit of the glitter, but not much. I made their chins just slightly darker, and of course where their tails came up weren't really their tails at all! But I colored them as if they were, and left a little blue on the side that wrapped around the stem of the one flower. I shaded into the bottoms and tops of the flowers to give them depth and even a slightly darker shade of gold between their eyes, and to give them brows! I thought it gave them a little bit more fierce look than just being plain! He loved them! And I loved making them for him! :)

I used a bit of stick glue around the edges to stick them on two pieces of construction paper so the piece wouldn't be so flimsy and tear! I cut as close to the shape as I could, then used his favorite color green, and pasted it on for an extra framing! (and to make it more sturdy) I cut it also around to make it not like just any picture pasted on a plane old square page!

The little girl loved this book! It wasn't ordinary! And even though she had a little girl crush on a boy at her school, I told her these were grown ups and, not kids! Little kids do not give kisses like this, that she had to promise to wait until she was older, and it was so cute. She said Oh, we don't kiss, we play and are best friends too!

Well, the page of course was transparent, and I added eye shadow on for the girl and brows for the boy and a mustache or the man!

She laughed and said "and he doesn't even have long hair, as hers was rather long! I told her that's because these were grown ups and grown ups kiss like mommies and daddies! So maybe she could pretend that this was her mommie and daddy in a kiss! I said, look, I tied their hair together with a purple ribbon, because it might be their favorite color too! And if a boy really liked her, he would want her to have her favorite color!

Mainly I showed her that the strands of hair are like ours, not all the same! She had pretty long blonde hair, but some of it was more blonde than others! In real life people's hair looks like that, and I showed her photos I'd taken of her, and since my hair is long too, I showed her how all my hair isn't exactly the same, and the same goes when someone has brown hair!

She laughed and said "boys don't have long hair" and I replied, no, but sometimes in fairy tales of the olden days, they didn't have scissors or barber shops like we do nowdays, so a lot of men had longer hair, and besides it was just a fairy tale and he didn't really have a mustache, I had just drawn one on him! She liked that idea and loved the picture! I showed her how I shaded inward from the corners to give it depth, she didn't notice,but I realized it was much easier with the girls hair than the browns in the boys hair. But I showed her if she wanted to make an area lighter, that is WHY there is a WHITE crayon in the box! Luckily this Crayola tower had a metallic white as well as a matte white, and it gave a little glimmer to his, although I don't know if you can see it!

It does look great in real life! lol. And as you can see, I used scissors with an edging to them, and pasted it onto a purple paper, with a green one under it and shaped it along with the picture!

I wanted to open as many artistic doors for her as possible because she found every aspect of this newly found coloring technique and putting backing on it for framing so intriguing! It was fun teaching her these things, she listened so intently and soaked up everything she could learn about different art techniques, I was really sad to leave, and not be a part of teaching her more with other mediums!

I did however get on the computer and brought up many coloring pages, and she learned of India's Mandala's and that is how they do art in other countries! So, her learning of art wasn't just stuck to a coloring book, I tried to broaden it to how people in other countries used color too, for relaxation and Mandala's were used for positive thinking! And if she was having a bad day, maybe she could get her colors out, and try one. I printed a bunch or her and she loved trying to make them in sequences like they do in India and other countries. So it wasn't all just about US and our color, but art is used to relax her, as I realized she did hold a bit of anxieties, and I tried to help her with that without using the word, as to not put a name on it, but just open a door for her to use her art as an outlet when she felt "not too good" because everyday isn't going to be perfect, but there are ways to make you feel better! She began a heart Mandala for me, but didn't get a chance to finish it, although I still have it, and she had the idea, because it had hearts on it, and all the hearts except for a few are colored in red. I'll keep it forever! :)

I'll have to say I did quite a better job on the leaves and feathers than I did the body of the Peacock. THE WHOLE THING GLITTERED! I only wish this photo did it justice!

There's a little story behind this one! As I say, it was her favorite, and she could not WAIT until I finished it! And she wanted ME to do it! As most children would want to do the prettiest one themselves, she wanted me to do it! So that not only made me feel a bit special to her :) *heart warming feeling* lol, Now that I look back on it, I wish I had of had a candle lit nearby. Sometimes just a little bit of heat, not much can make a crayon or color pencil go a little bit smoother and you can smooth it with your finger, but I didn't think of it at the time! (Hind sight they say.. 20/20) blah! LOL

Well, I told her this one was going to take a bit longer than the others because I knew she really loved it and I wanted to make sure I picked the right colors! Apparently I did, the poor thing, this was keeping her awake! LOL! :) Well, everyday when she came in from school "is it done yet?" With her big blue eyes!

Not quite, but I'm working on it! And I'd give her a little peek! She "oooooh and aaaaaah'd" at it, and I'd say "be patient, it will get done before I have to leave I promise!"

I did have to choose the colors carefully, and get good contrast! I wish I had gone a bit deeper with the greens on the leaves, but it still glittered and shimmered in the light, and that's what mattered.

One night, after I thought her long asleep, I came in the front room to talk to the kids parents as they were watching "the nanny" show. (In my opinion the Nanny needed to visit this house lol, because the only time they were super good is when I was there,) I gave them attention they'd never had their mother told me. I guess she wishes she never told me that, because that made me give them more attention and reading to them until they would fall asleep. Literally. Not a "story then go to bed." I would read until their little eyes were closed and they were sleeping soundly!

Well, I had finished the peacock and made sure it had purple and pink, and what could tip the ends better than RED.... glitter red! Well, I had already put it on the pink paper, and purple, and it was finished, and I was going to be leaving in a few days and wanted to make sure I had the same amount of coloring inside their folders I got them before I left. I'm not a fan of favoring children, it's just wrong. So I wanted the boy to have "boy things" and I did, as you can see their folders were together, I couldn't crop everything out.

That night, I found the true nature of this mother. When I stepped in to see what this Nanny show was about, the little girl crept so slowly and quiet out of her bed and came and climbed up into her mommies lap. With a big hug and kiss. (Let's smoooze mommie) type. Anyway, during that time, she said "Kathy can I see the peacock one more time before I go to sleep." and I said she had to ask her mom.

The mother came back with a sort of harsh "You can see it if she brings it in here, you are not going to go to her room and color, you've got school in the morning" as if I would let that happen when I knew she already was losing sleep over having this peacock picture! I tell you, I actually felt bad for this child as she was yelled at (when I forgot to turn off the baby monitor) because she didn't want her socks sliding into her shoes, and the mother would yell at her horribly and using some pretty bad language for a kindergarten child.) So I just said "ok but only for a minute like your mommie said then you've got to get sleep and I'll make sure it's finished." So she waited patiently for me to return with her pink folder. Already with her eyes a glow for this peacock!

I opened her folder took it out and let her see it. I let her touch her fingers on it, because you can feel the texture of the glittery part of the crayon. Then I said, it's almost done, now you get on back to bed ok! And she said ok, and ran back and got in bed! Aw, the poor thing she wanted to have it so badly!

Kinda jokingly I said to her mother, "you realize when she heard my voice, she knew I was out here and that peacock was a little ulterior motive to get up".. I said it with a smile as not to cause any ill intention, but the mother turned and lashed out at me and said "My daughter loves me and she came out here to tell me she loves me and kiss me good night!!!"

WOW, oh, I told her I wasn't implying her daughter didn't love her at ALL, I was merely pointing out that when she heard my voice, it was a ploy to get out of bed and see the drawing! I turned and left the room, and really had nothing left to say to the mother as my time to leave was drawing near. It was the house I had grown up in, and it was left to my son, and I had just buried my father not less than a month prior to her moving in there with my son, so to be lashed out at in the house I grew up in I was certainly taken back, and by a person who wanted me to do home work, babysit, and read to, but my comment was not to imply her child didn't love her! So, you can imagine, what this poor child must endure when no one else is around. After all I'd heard plenty over the baby monitor, I guess I should have expected this is not a stable person.

In either event, I'll never see the child again, although there will come a day when they are grown up and I will have plenty of beautiful photos to give her of her childhood and all the wonderful memories I hope she will hold that I taught her. I can rest assured that I never raised my voice to her or her little brother, and my heart nearly broke when she came into my room and ask me why Santa didn't come and see them that year. I pointed out to her all the great things she did get, but she is a smart little girl and I don't think she believed a word of it, but I tried to just keep it positive and made sure her and her brother both had brand new clothes and toys before I left. I guess some people just cannot take the fact that if you don't pay attention to your children in a positive way, someone else out there might, and that child is going to want to spend time with the other person if they are treated better by the other person, so please if you are a parent reading this, be kind to your children, be patient and above all, show them how much you love them, because actions speak louder than words as the saying goes, and when you speak harsh to someone they became attached to, you'll be doing a harm to that child. So remember to stay positive with children, they are fragile and have only been on this planet a short time, and need proper LOVING guidance. I have no regrets I know that. This peacock will forever remain my reminder that I know it made one child incredibly happy and that feeling will live on, long after the fact I am gone from her life.

haha.. cute.. Just as I was ending this hub I seen this, the other piece I mentioned earlier that I hung on the tree for them! This one was the Peter Pan (as you can see of course lol) with just a little Tinkerbell telling him maybe his shadow was lost again lol) I tried to crop out the bottom, but the one name is still there. I added on my own bottom, grass to make it as if he's not just floating in thin air. lol. Although he can, after all he IS Peter Pan lol! This went into the folder for the boy. :) two beautiful children, I know will grow up to be beautiful adults, I can only pray for them to get good guidance, as I know it's not coming from the mother or grandmother. I guess I can leave off with, I know I brought the world of art and drawing into their lives! I can live with that! :)

A -P.S. I didn't mean for this to get personal, but to bring attention to the facts that art can be a very relaxing thing for a child, and no child should ever be robbed of creativity. So even if your child uses a wall, get that chalk paint and let them go for it! I would say never stifle a childs creativity, not just in art, but in writing, reading or singing. As this girl was told not to sing high pitched, but in her own voice, when she might have become a beautiful soprano singer! Please don't stifle a child! Let them be them and not change who they are! Maybe the world won't be so confusing to them! :)