That’s the wonderful thing about crayons. They can take you to more places than a starship.
—Guinan (Star Trek: The Next Generation character)
I love crayons. I love the way they smell. They smell sort of like candles, but better than candles. Like candles with potential. I also love the versatility of crayons. You can draw lines with them or color in large areas. You can smudge them. You can even melt them. And if you should break them or lose them, no worries. They’re nontoxic and inexpensive to replace.
Sometimes when I’m watching Marshall in the afternoon, we color together. We draw all sorts of things, from basic shapes to flowers, cats, and toys. Sometimes he asks me to draw specific things. Once he asked for a picture of a Christmas tree with a star on top, and another time he demanded a television. One day I showed him how to draw stick figures and he made me to draw “bendans” (Band-Aids) on all of them. He is fascinated by Band-Aids.
Though I have a large collection of crayons for my personal use that includes colors that you can’t even buy anymore, the crayons that I love best are Marshall’s hard-used, jaggedly-broken crayons. They are symbolic of that time spent with him, time spent just talking and having fun together. Soon Livia will be old enough to join us. I hope that crayons will help both children learn to enjoy art freely without feeling like they have to be good at it or worrying that they’ll be criticized.
I certainly don’t worry about art critics. I love making crayon art. It’s just so colorful.
This is a picture of some of my crayon art. The hand in the lower right corner is Livia's. She can't resist crayons either!
I can’t wait until the children start making crayon art for me. They get better at almost everything every day. Soon they’ll be covering our refrigerator with their colorful masterpieces. And that’s why crayons are My Favorite Things
Pingback: Homework | Blue-Footed Musings