the mind of a 9 year old artist

my little cousin comes spend the afternoon after school at my house every friday. it's a little tradition we started with her brother (who has better things to do now, as an angsty teen). usually i work friday afternoons, so she just stays with my mom but on random occasions when i'm free, we use our time together to listen to music and craft our troubles away !

the other day i bought her a minecraft coloring set with the idea of coloring some critters together. she colored a creeper, a chicken and half a dolphin in the time i finished my frog. then i decided to make a collage out of the frog because why not. 

she saw me and immediately wanted to make one herself. so she left the dolphin half done and started collaging. she had access to my whole collection: stickers, paper, cut outs, magazines, etc. not to brag but the amount of scrapbook material i've compiled over the years is huge, and i would say it's 90% cute stuff. somehow she still managed to make this. 

  

she called it dream core, to which i was like "more like nightmare core". but apparently dream core just means weird. something that looks weird when you're up but that would be normal if you were dreaming. i personally think is really cool and i loved seeing how much effort she put in it, on choosing the stickers alone, she was so picky. it looks weird and fun, a little bit spooky and also, my favorite part:  like a kid made it. i love kids art. i don't think it can be recreated, you have to be a kid.

this is why the stages of learning and improving a skill are so cool to me. the art you make when you are still a rookie it's unique, and you will not be able to make it look like that again when you gain more experience. so just enjoy the process. ugly art is still art, it will speak to people and some of them will love it. you made it and that's what matter, human made art will always be good, it will always have meaning. even a silly wiggly line badly drawn cat.

and you don't have to be a kid to make bad art, my dad is almost 60 and one of my favorite pieces of art ever is his go to drawing: a long haired woman.

she looks like thAt and i've seen him draw her an infinite amount of times since i'm a kid, and i always love her. i've been obsessed with her forever now. i'm so happy he would sit down with little old me to art and craft even tho he clearly wasn't good at it, just because i loved it so much. 

he has never tried to improve his skills (and he never will) but still draws her every time i ask him to. you don't need to be good to make good art. hell, you don't even need to practice to create something someone will love. and my dad is proof of it.

here are some other fun comparisons of mine and my little cousin's sketchbooks: 

 

mind you, she dreams of drawing the way i do. even tho you can see my drawing are not even good. they're doodles and they look weird. but she loves them. she loves them so much more than her own art. as if my brain could ever imagine a yassified potato with acrylic nails or whatever the fuck she made to make tinkiwinki look like that.

her personal experiences, her age and the level of her skills allow her to make art i could never do. she should be proud of her creations and you should too ! !!

make ugly art ! make it yourself ! !! art doesn't have to be good but it should always be human.