Before you are able to draw, you have to learn to see, and you learn to see by drawing.
--Mick Maslen
My oldest son turned 10 in May. Double numbers -- very significant! He is the son who asks for nothing, and is happy with whatever he gets, so he wouldn't give us a clue about what he might want for his birthday. Meanwhile, for months he had been bringing home these really fun faces he had been doodling at school. Not the usual copied cartoons that you see so often in this age, through teenagers (isn't this a good drawing? me: you mean the thing you traced?). These faces and bodies are completely original. I read that fourth grade is the year that if a child is interested in something they will either stay with it for good, or leave it for other pastimes. I really want to encourage him, but not be pushy as I could easily send him in the other direction. I knew I had to handle him delicately -- I have been encouraging him in my art classes for years, and even tried to get him interested in classes taught by others. So anyway, I had been saving his little scraps of faces for something, I didn't know quite what. Close to his birthday, I picked out my favorite 5 faces, pasted them on coordinating blue paper, and found funny quotes to go with them. Took them to my printer, had "illustrated by Raine Haddad" printed on the back, and boxed up a set for his birthday. Home run. He loved them, especially the credit to him on the back, AND when I told him he gets all the proceeds. I did several farmers' markets this summer, and after the first market selling his cards, I brought home $20 to him; the next market, $35; and the next $50. He was ecstatic, and people have been very eager to buy the cards when they find out he made them and gets the money for them. And he subtly learned the lesson that artists aren't all the starving kind.
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