“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”
~Pablo Picasso
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My 7-year-old recently decided she wanted to enter a couple of pictures in the youth art division of our county fair.
A lesson in graciousness ensued.
One picture won first place, and she was over the moon…
From the second hung an “Honorable Mention” ribbon.
“Look, this one has a ribbon too!” I chirpily called out as we spotted it.
Her shoulders slumped as she retreated into sulk-mode. “Every picture has that ribbon if it didn’t win, Mommy. It means I lost. They didn’t like my picture.”
“Well, if you didn’t win, that means there must have been some very talented artists in this group. Lets go look and see which ones won.”
She shuffled along behind me, hands stuffed in her pockets, kicking at cracks in the Exhibit Hall’s concrete floor.
“Look, third place was this cute little bunny! How do you suppose they painted it? They must have worked really hard on it.”
She glanced up and quirked a half smile at me. “It is pretty cute.”
By the time we got to first place she wasn’t sulking anymore.
As we left the exhibit hall she was skipping. “I guess I like both my ribbons, ’cause they both mean different things. The blue one means I won and the green one means I tried my best. That’s still pretty good isn’t it, Mommy?”
Indeed.
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Yes, it is pretty good. It’s pretty amazing actually, for her to enter an arts contest at such an early age. That takes guts and I’m proud of her for that. Winning is just icing on the cake,
That’s one of those moments where I’d be giving myself a secret “Woo hoo mom!” So great to get her focused on trying hard, not just winning. All her pictures are great…actually, I like her honorable mention one best! When it comes to art, everyone has different things they like more, and I bet it was very hard for those judges to choose! If YOU like it, and you put your heart into making it, that’s what’s important.
(And I’m a “professional artist”…kind of…I sell my art, anyways…and you know what, not everyone likes my art, and even THAT is ok. If people like it, that makes me feel good, but if I had fun making it, I’m not sorry I made it even if they don’t.)
PS: I just realized I put “Texifornia” in stead of “Scribbleprints” on my Magic Marker Monday post. That’s my OTHER blog. Oops!