Action Painting

It was sunny today. On the spur of the moment, I broke out the paints and canvasses for our action painting lesson.

Lovely young lady, eleven, went first. "I don't like painting," she said. "I might get paint on my clothes," she said. "Do I have to?" she said.

("Hmm," I said. "Wear this," I said. "Yes," I said.)

"Wow, that looks COOL!!" she said. "Can I display it on the wall?"

Fine young gent, three. A traditional young man, he was a little disconcerted at the idea of dripping and flinging paint.

Dancing, spinning, splatting. Fine young gent, five, was in his element. His performance was as much a work of art as his painting. "Mom, I paint just like Jackson Pollock!" he declared at dinner, which led us in a roundabout way through a discussion of creating unique works of art and on to, of all things, fractals. My mathematical husband had to add to my rather fuzzy description. My admittedly muddled understanding of fractals, vaguely remembered from a couple articles read long ago, one related to a study of fractals in Pollock's paintings (this takes a while to load, but it's interesting even if your understanding of fractals is a bit muddled), doesn't lend itself to clear explanation. The bonus outcome: The kids are interested in learning more about fractals, and so am I.

Lovely lady, thirteen. Her vision was of an autumn tree, the viewer looking straight down from the sky. I forgot to ask if she planned it from the beginning, or if that's what her painting brought to mind when she was finished. Either way, it's really cool.