The Best Work on Butcher Paper Ever

Posted by Carina | August 24, 2009 | 26 Comments

My son was called into school for his Kindergarten assessment test, and like all teachers of small children, his had a project for the mom to do in the other room. She had me trace the outline of my son on a piece of butcher paper and left me with four tempera paint colors to render him en vivo. It’s been a while since my medium was butcher paper and tempera, I tell you what. I had red, yellow, blue, and brown. Suddenly, I recalled the cut outlines of the other kids I’d seen hanging in the hall, painted by what I had assumed were children. In that moment I knew that mine had to be the best picture of a child ever on paper with tempera.

I set my toddler on a chair with a book and some orange segments and got to work. I reworked the outline with the pencil; rounding, defining the edges, checking the proportions, putting in detail on the pants and shoes. My toddler got off his chair and started moving the little paint pots, picking them up one by one and handing them too me. I found myself getting annoyed at toddler and his attempts to distract me. I was engaged in high opus here! “Go sit down! Eat your oranges!” He ignored me.

Since the teacher had provided clumsy kindergarten brushes, I put in texture and shadow with heavier paint. “I’ve got to start carrying around my own brushes,” I murmured to myself, ready to add another half a pound of art supplies to my purses just in case another project crept up on me. Toddler dipped two fingers into the yellow and started wiping them on the floor. “Stop it!” I hissed. I found a Sharpie and outlined the facial features, added more details on his shirt, stitching on his pants, and placed a few strands of hair just so.

The teacher walked in and said, “Wow! I’ve never seen one this well done! You’ve done this before, haven’t you? Someone’s mom is talented!” I demurred, but was really pleased that I’d made an impression.

Then it struck me, the best? Bound and determined to knock everyone else’s project out of the park? What is going on here? How can I become, in under a minute, completely and utterly obsessed with having the superlative butcher paper outline of a child to hang on a wall? Was it merely being inside a school building? All those years I spent driven to be the best academic, the best actor, the best reader, the best at everything, it all came back to me on the industrial tile floor of a Kindergarten art room. I’d turned it into competition to prove that I was the best, not to paint a picture of my child.

Yes, it was important to me for him to know that his mom painted a really cool picture that looked just like him, down to the hazel eyes, but I knew that I’d turned it into something about me. To my shame, there had even been a small wave of resentment breaking as the toddler demanded parenting while I wanted to get the shade of the skin exactly right. I felt silly. I’m a grown woman, but my twin drivers are still perfectionism (for some things) and competition (but only sometimes.)

Even now, I want to get back to that school because I realized that I didn’t color in his pupils to the right inky black. I wonder if anyone will notice when I pull out my very own Sharpie out of my purse and color in those eyes…

Help!

Category: Daily Special, Slice of Life
Tags: art > artist > children > motherhood

Comments

26 Responses to “The Best Work on Butcher Paper Ever”

Michelle Glauser
August 24th, 2009 @ 3:03 am

I can also be very competitive. It can be very helpful when motivating, I just have to remember to aim this feature of mine in the right direction and let some things slide.
Ardis
August 24th, 2009 @ 4:42 am

Of course it’s important! It’s vital! If I could go back to kindergarten, I’d still like to repaint my butcher-paper-and-tempura-clown, because the teacher picked it up before it was dry and the black I’d used to outline the eye ran down as a tear drop and spoiled the artistic perfection of it all. It’s 44 years later and I still resent that! True story. /grin/

I actually think you were brave to be anywhere near paint pots with a toddler in tow.
Justine
August 24th, 2009 @ 6:55 am

I still have that butcher paper cut-out on the wall from my daughter’s kindergarten year. So of course make it good so it can! It might decorate his room for years to come.

And that drive is probably just going to get worse. You might have to join the PTA to channel it into constructive use…
Dovie
August 24th, 2009 @ 9:29 am

When ever I have to decorate a door for teacher appreciation week a similar sort of delicious madness comes over me. I think I just have too few outlets for that kind of thing in my life.

I’ve had to do three of them over the years and let me tell you they were amazing. I’m not the winner at many things (housekeeping, organization, gardening, having dinner on the table before 8, general responsible adulthood, etc, etc, etc…) but let me tell you door decorating I can do that!

I shouldn’t claim it all. I really have put these type projects to prayer and received answers as to theme, design and layout. It does feel wonderful that the Lord is mindful of me and is ready to help magnify my efforts even in the area of door decorating. It just feels so good all around.

What I am trying to say said way better:
“The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before….Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty….The more you trust and rely upon the Spirit, the greater your capacity to create. That is your opportunity in this life and your destiny in the life to come. Sisters, trust and rely on the Spirit. As you take the normal opportunities of your daily life and create something of beauty and helpfulness, you improve not only the world around you but also the world within you.” -President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “Happiness Your Heritage”, October 2008, Ensign.
Aimee
August 24th, 2009 @ 9:31 am

Wow, that is the funniest and sadly most applicable-to-me post I’ve read in a long time. At least I’m not the only one who is super competitive with most everything in life…shhhh, it’s my little secret.
Sandi
August 24th, 2009 @ 10:27 am

You hit the nail on the head, I remember the day I thought to myself, “You are the Mom, now, you have to think of the children first.” It as a painful experience.
Jennifer B.
August 24th, 2009 @ 11:03 am

Carina, I love this! You ought to take a picture of your masterpiece at Back-to-School Night and post it here.

After, you touch up those pupils, of course.
QueenScarlett
August 24th, 2009 @ 11:29 am

You crack me up.
April
August 24th, 2009 @ 12:12 pm

That was great! Wait till the projects start! One year my 8 year old exclaimed “can we use my ideas this time?” I’ve learned to step back and use my Mom perspective, but it isn’t always easy! Good luck in the years to come. In the mean time go ahead fix the pupils I won’t tell! : )
Paula
August 24th, 2009 @ 12:31 pm

I’m laughing, but not with you. . . :S
m&m
August 24th, 2009 @ 12:35 pm

Great post. I struggle with trying to find the balance of wanting to succeed w/o having it drive me so much that I make myself and others miserable.

Thanks for the humorous honesty.
Merry Michelle
August 24th, 2009 @ 2:46 pm

We must be cosmic twins! I have no idea why I obsess so much over my kids doing well (read: BETTER than everyone else). Am I living vicariously through them? Am I prideful? Am I competitive? Probably “Yes” to all of the above.

One scary thing that I have noticed is that my older son will only bother with tasks he knows he can master fast and easily. If he thinks he can’t complete a task to perfection–he won’t even bother. Have I created a perfectionist that shies away from challenges?
Carina
August 24th, 2009 @ 2:50 pm

Merry Michelle, my oldest son does the same thing. We’re working through it.
Melissa M.
August 24th, 2009 @ 3:21 pm

Oh, Carina, you’re just beginning…It starts with the butcher paper cutout. Next thing you know you’re making a homemade volcano for the science fair while your child watches; then you’re collecting bugs for his insect collection and mounting them in perfect lines while he’s at school, and then you’re typing up his report on Australia and cutting out pictures and repasting them after he’s pasted them in because they weren’t pasted straight. One day you’ll sit at the computer, “revising” his essay on The Great Gatsby, determined to get that A, and it will hit you: you might have gone too far. Not that I’ve ever done any of these things.
Tay
August 24th, 2009 @ 3:36 pm

I am looking at my future. *sigh*

My kid is barely a year old and it frustrates me to no end when adoring relatives even begin to compare him to other kids. And the fact that he refuses to walk because crawling is apparently good enough is really something I need to accept. So far that’s been the “imperfection” in his physical achievements that I would LOVE to fine-tune and perfect.

I think this is a reason why I’m in nursery – to learn to love the scribbles and accept each child as beyond a product of their parents.
Merry Michelle
August 24th, 2009 @ 3:45 pm

Amen Tay!! DOWN WITH CHILD COMPARING!
Faith.Not.Fear
August 24th, 2009 @ 4:07 pm

Don’t forget the eternal pinewood derby complex! Usually affects males, though .
jendoop
August 24th, 2009 @ 4:24 pm

This applies to more than just mothers and children. Has anyone ever spent more than 2 hours preparing a church lesson? Ever told someone exactly how they can fix their life, when they didn’t ask for your advice?

Speaking from personal experience, we usually justify these types of things with the excuse of loving and serving. You put it this way, “I’d turned it into competition to prove that I was the best, not to paint a picture of my child.” How great that you recognized it and so, will be vigilant about it in the future. This is really the hard part of any type of service (parenting, teaching, friendshipping, marriage) – selflessness.
mormonhermitmom
August 24th, 2009 @ 5:18 pm

So that’s why it was so hard to just let my husband and son do his pinewood derby car!

I’m laughing beside you.

On the other hand, I can get lazy. I might have given the toddler the paint and said, “Here draw your sibling”. That would have been interesting.
Jennie
August 24th, 2009 @ 8:31 pm

I used to be like that, but I have a very finite amount of energy and I simply can’t waste it on crafts for elementary school. Especially since nobody ever heralds “our” projects as being as brilliant as I think they are. Basically, nobody cares about my masterpieces. And then I’m afraid the teacher will think I’m one of those nutjob helicopter parents.

So now I let my kids do everything. And I just sit back and watch (“watch” might be too strong a word. More like, “sit in my chair reading a book and shouting suggestions when I think about it.” ) And it is a beautiful thing.
Justine
August 24th, 2009 @ 9:09 pm

ok, so I saw said picture this afternoon at the school, and DANG WOMAN! You’ve put every mother throughout Kindergarten history to shame! The subtlety you were able to manage with that huge mangled Kindergarten paintbrush is really remarkable.

Seriously, there aren’t words…
Melissa M.
August 24th, 2009 @ 10:11 pm

Now I want to go up to the school and see Carina’s picture as well.
Sage
August 24th, 2009 @ 10:18 pm

I just love it when these posts mirror my life! Well, I didn’t have anyone going into kindergarten so it wasn’t that close. But I did just read Leadership and Self-deception by the Arbinger Institute (same group that did Bonds that Make us Free) so I’ve been thinking about how I relate to others and especially how I mother. It’s hard not to always make everything about me!

Thanks for the lovely post (hope we get to see a photo of your masterpiece!)
Selwyn
August 25th, 2009 @ 12:43 am

I second the call for a photo!

Separating my own ability and learning from my boys’ is something I still have to work on (though usually I’m more in Jennie’s “book and suggestions” camp!)

I’m sure everyone has a story of when they went a little hard in “enthusiasm”, and lived to question themselves about it.
pamela
August 25th, 2009 @ 10:01 am

Can I have you for a mommy? Thanks for the honesty.
Sue
August 25th, 2009 @ 2:25 pm

I love your story! So funny.

At the same time, I thank my lucky stars that no kindergarten teacher ever gave me such an assignment. I’m convinced that I have what almost amounts to an art deficit (at least it could reasonably be construed as such), and my work would certainly have been THE WORST ever submitted by any mom.

I could have written a nice little poem about him, though!

=)