WE ARE ALL NATURALLY CREATIVE

Children look at crayons as their art medium (check out my first grade Christmas tree).
When visiting a public school, I asked a group of about one hundred first graders "who wants to be an artist when they grow up." Every one of them raised their hands!
Although that number will decrease drastically before they reach the fifth grade, I told them that I believe that all of us (the human race) are creative because God created us in his image and God is creative. Children are amazing little creatures and I hope that they will always remember that they are creative.

How Crayons changed the way I think of art?

I received the following question from Allie and friends through my website and thought it would be a good question to post on my blog site. Please feel free to post comments and/or questions.

Dear Jeffery,

My friends and I are doing a History project on Crayola Crayons and how
they impacted art supplies. We wondering how crayons changed the way you thought of art and if it made art any easier for you.

Thank you so much!


My answer:

Crayons have most certainly changed the way I have thought about art!

In the beginning and as it still is, the idea of drawing with crayons has a certain childhood charm about it that probably affects us all in a similar way. I think the crayon, for most of us, represents our first art experience with all the innocence and confidence of being a young creator of art. I still have those wonderful feelings when drawing with Crayola Crayons and in this way they serve to stimulate and motivate me

As far as making it any easier for me? Yes and No. There is an oxymoron attached to crayon drawing.

" Yes" because it's just a box of crayons and I'm just coloring! Crayons took the pressure off of comparing myself to some master artist.

"No" because the challenge for me was to technically make the crayon do what I wanted it to do, which has taken many years of trial and error to reach a satisfied level of control.

For the novice, yes it’s nice to just pick up a box of crayons and start coloring but there is a learning curve that can be very frustrating, depending on how much of a perfectionist you may be.