A long forgotten hobby

This past week Logan, Hayleah & I broke out some acrylic paints & got creative with sponges for some good, time-killing fun. The kids really enjoyed themselves. However it wasn't long before I found myself borrowing their sponges & paint to create a few masterpieces of my own. My pink kitty & green dragon weren't great (how much can you really do with a sponge after all??), but I remembered how much I really love to paint.

Earlier in the week I broke out one of Tyler's "How to Draw" books for Jordan. He was bored & bugging the crap out of me & I needed to find him something to do without me that would get him out of my hair for a little while. I got him everything he needed to get started & even helped him pick out something that wasn't too difficult. I quickly found that my goal was not to be achieved. His drawing sucked me in & I helped him draw a shark from the book. I had to tear myself away from his work to get my own (boring) work done.

A few days ago I was returning a bunch of stuff to Walmart we didn't use from the ward party (along with the Father's Day gift I bought for Dave...he rarely likes what I get him {brat}) & decided to grab a few things while there. I bought Jordan a sketch pad but before he had a chance to use it, I decided to try my hand at drawing some monkeys swinging from a tree (love that song!). They actually turned out really cute & now I'm dying to hit Michaels to pick up a few canvas' to paint some pics for the kids' walls.

Way back in high school, I really enjoyed art class. Not enough to take it every year (I didn't love the teacher) but I didn't do too badly at it. I had one sketch in particular (we were doing portraits of the person sitting next to us) that I was kind of proud of. I'm very hard on myself & if it's not perfect I don't like hearing what others have to say about it. Not that I expect they would lie about it, just that I didn't want them to feel like they had to lie in order to spare my feelings. I'm a bit neurotic like that.

Whatever I do must be done as well as can be done. If not, I beat myself up & figure there wasn't much point in doing it in the first place. It's like this with all things for me. I try not to do things that will show how neurotic I can be so my kids don't pick this trait up from me.

Thankfully, to date, it's been successful & no one is yet as neurotic as I am. ;) It's sad that my success as a parent can be in any way measured by how un-neurotic my kids are. LOL