Pastel Scratch Drawing

A lot of times, I wish Mathias has a bit longer attention span to sit and draw for more than 5 minutes. But then, perhaps it’s normal – he’s only 4 – and kids are just like that, aren’t they? But still, I want to keep engaging him in creative activities. Keep trying to make the creative environment and opportunities for him.

As I was growing up, my parents were very off-handed about my education. They didn’t try to encourage certain activities, be it creativity or academics. The only thing that came close as to their “direction” to me was them saying, “Do your homework, and maybe try to study materials in advance.” But they always let me learn anything I wanted to try, although my mom sometimes said, “You gotta stay with it!” time to time. (Ok, maybe I too had a pretty short attention span)

Now I think about it, my mom had some casual instructions that she passed to me that stayed with me. For example, drawing in thick, bold line with color inside the boundaries of coloring page illustrations to make further coloring easier.

Pastel scratch drawing is easy, but enticing kid’s drawing activity that I might have learned from my mom. Or it could have been something I learned from school. I just remember the method as being one I really enjoyed – the satisfaction of laying out all the colors that I wish on the paper and covering all of them with black oil pastel. Going, going, all colors are gone! Then, with a sharp point, scratching in lines through the black color to reveal the sky of colors underneath.