It's very funny that you happened to post this (and the other post) today, because also today DD's school sent home the information about their latest fundraising project: a company that makes greeting cards out of your kid's artwork (or digital photography, or graphic art). For $20 ($15 for the second and subsequent sets) you get 12 greeting cards (well, blank cards; you pay extra for a printed greeting, but who needs that?) with your kid's art on the front and a little blurb with their name, age, and the medium (or media) in which the work was created on the back.
And I had two thoughts about this.
Thought One was, Wow, this is actually pretty cool. DD would be totally stoked to open up a box and find a dozen nice, professional-looking cards with her very own drawing or painting on them, and she could use them to send thank-you notes to people who send her presents, and they would love that.
Thought Two was, Holy frack, she's five years old. Okay, she drew that one really cool orange hippo,* but mostly she draws stick figures and paints muddy blobs, and I think putting this one available sheet of white cardstock in front of her and announcing that she has to make one really cool piece of artwork is going to take all the fun out of it, plus also create upset when, inevitably, said artwork doesn't turn out to be perfect. Do I really want to get into this?
DH and I often suggest to DD that she make a painting or a drawing for some particular person, but that's about as far as we've ever gone with the pushing. She doesn't need pushing: the apartment is littered with discarded artwork, of various levels of competence, and she veers wildly between thinking everything she does is wonderful and thinking everything she does is terrible. I think it's a little early to start encouraging either perception ;^).
* I was totally impressed by the orange hippo, because, apart from being orange, it looks much more like a hippo than any hippo I could possibly draw. The following week DD drew another hippo at school, and this one was even more impressive because, although it didn't look nearly as much like a hippo, she had written "hippopotamus" on the back: HPPTM. :D
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And I had two thoughts about this.
Thought One was, Wow, this is actually pretty cool. DD would be totally stoked to open up a box and find a dozen nice, professional-looking cards with her very own drawing or painting on them, and she could use them to send thank-you notes to people who send her presents, and they would love that.
Thought Two was, Holy frack, she's five years old. Okay, she drew that one really cool orange hippo,* but mostly she draws stick figures and paints muddy blobs, and I think putting this one available sheet of white cardstock in front of her and announcing that she has to make one really cool piece of artwork is going to take all the fun out of it, plus also create upset when, inevitably, said artwork doesn't turn out to be perfect. Do I really want to get into this?
DH and I often suggest to DD that she make a painting or a drawing for some particular person, but that's about as far as we've ever gone with the pushing. She doesn't need pushing: the apartment is littered with discarded artwork, of various levels of competence, and she veers wildly between thinking everything she does is wonderful and thinking everything she does is terrible. I think it's a little early to start encouraging either perception ;^).
* I was totally impressed by the orange hippo, because, apart from being orange, it looks much more like a hippo than any hippo I could possibly draw. The following week DD drew another hippo at school, and this one was even more impressive because, although it didn't look nearly as much like a hippo, she had written "hippopotamus" on the back: HPPTM. :D