Annabel’s drawing obsession has been going strong for over a year now. Her preschool offers enrichment options, and when I saw that one of them was a drawing class it was a no-brainer. Annie has drawing class once a week, which is great for her, and she comes home 45 minutes later that day, which is great for James.

I really had no idea how it was going to work – I figured the class was going to be glorified coloring, since it was geared to three and four-year-olds. When I walked in to pick Annie up after the first class, I saw the art teacher had an example drawing up on the board. Annie ran over to me and showed me her drawing.

rainbow, by annie

I looked at it and was like, holy crap, she drew an actual rainbow. With the sun…and grass. And it actually looked like what the teacher had up on the board as an example. I was impressed, partly with Annie, but also with the teacher because I cannot imagine teaching a gaggle of preschoolers how to do anything, let alone draw.

I think I look forward to Annie’s drawing class almost as much as she does. Sure, it means more paper that I have to find a place for (because to throw away a piece of Annie’s artwork is asking for trouble), but I’m just always surprised by how good it is. I know I’m her mom so it’s my job to think it’s good, but I wasn’t expecting it to be decipherable and it actually is.

airplane, by annie

I didn’t see the example on the board and I knew this one was an airplane. But just to be certain, I asked Annie what she’d drawn, and she explained the plane to me, including the lone cloud, “It was a pretty warm day, Mom, so there was only one cloud in the sky.”

I have zero drawing ability, unless tracing counts as drawing. I know she’s copying the teacher’s example, but I couldn’t do that if my life depended on it. So my feelings of ineptitude might be coloring my judgement here a bit.

At her last class she drew a Jack-in-the-box (I needed the teacher’s example drawing to decipher that one). When she handed me the drawing I said, “Wow, Annie! Your Jack-in-the-box is so good!” And she replied, “NO, Mama. It’s a Jackie-in-the-box. See her earrings?”

jackie in the box, by annie

The teacher told me that Annie really wanted to draw a girl, hence a Jackie in the box instead of a Jack.

Yesterday Annie told me that she wants to write her own book, but since she doesn’t know how to spell she’s just going to make it a book of pictures. At the rate she goes, I expect she’ll have a 200 page novel finished by the end of next week.