“She’s practising pointillism” – if ever there was a cryptic answer, this was it. To make sense of this strangeness, I let my logical brain take over (a true rarity) and as I unleashed Sherlock Holmes on the words, two poignant questions emerged: who was ‘practising pointillism’ and why? Here’s what I discovered: the culprit; my fourteen-month old daughter, the reason; it’s fun.
We bought Amelia bath crayons a while back. And my little Picasso has been practising artistry in her bath for many a month. She has drawn a multitude of lines and squiggles but her favourite technique is dot-making. She stands in her bath and bangs her crayon (usually the black one) on the tiles with much fervour and great delight. Her banging was so intense the other night that it rudely disrupted the nonchalance of my mind numbing perusal of Facebook statuses. I guess ‘practising pointillism’ is as good an excuse as any.
So on the evening of the aforementioned bath time banging, I learned two things: 1) My Amelia certain to be a famous and wealthy artist (naturally) and 2) My husband has actually paid attention to the art lessons that I have generously meted out with great enthusiasm in all of our gallery visits – undaunted by stifled yawns and rolling eyeballs, I have dished the dirt on art theory and emotive response for many any a year now. And I am glad to oblige a definition for any other interested parties: pointillism is a painting technique in which small, distinct dots of pure colour are applied in patterns to form an image. Pointillism is associated with the impressionist art movement and its most famous proponent was George Seurat. Okay, lesson over but I’m not done with the pearls of wisdom:
It’s always a fun task refining our children’s mad insanity and quirky randomness into acts of genius.
