Childhood Art Memories

Do you remember early childhood art projects?

Sitting at the demoted kitchen table that now sat at the foot of the complete set of The World Book Encyclopedia, I glued construction paper to an empty tissue box. These boxes take on all sorts of Crayola magic, though they do tend to turn into buildings most often.

The smell of rubber cement was intoxicating. I am not sure when Elmer became cement, but it could be found in the old, white painted cabinet that sat on the green shag in the corner of the basement. I remember the label warning of certain death if it was consumed. I, of course, then had to dab just a tiny molecule of it on my tongue to prove them wrong.

There were several crayon/marker/pencil drawings. Mostly images of a house with a chimney and maybe a tree. The most popular and enduring image in my brain, I am pretty sure I copied off of a friend. I must have drawn versions of this a hundred times over the years.

And then there was Tom the Whale….

I was intermittently obsessed with carving a whale out of Ivory soap. I carved in his name at least once. The first completed masterpiece was the victim of a dog attack. Pretty sure that I broke the tail off of the second. I really do not remember how many whales there were, but some Ivory was sacrificed.

The last big art project was a large, colorful clay piece that was done for a book report. It was for one of the books in The Great Brain series by John Dennis Fitzgerald. It depicted a horse race. There was a wood railing, horseshoe prints in the grass, and 2 horses–according to my memory. I have no idea how those horses were standing up. I remember hiding toothpicks in the clay but it was not the kind that you can bake.

What is the first art project you remember doing?