The Artist cont'd

Fiona has continued to paint with obsessiveness and enthusiasm. For her birthday I made up some business cards for her. In the corner is a tiny cropped colour photo of her at work (I used the photo from this blog post). At the top it says "Fiona Burkholder, watercolour artist, age 4." Then, below the contact information, it says "Studio Visits by Appointment." She was thrilled and gives away a card every time she gives away a painting.

A couple of paintings from the floral series

Her art is getting a little more purposeful and goal-directed, though I'm trying to temper that, since what makes her so amazing (to me) is that she is completely absorbed by the process rather than the product. Still, she's doing some new things that are fun to watch developing.

This is one of her all-time favourite paintings,
because of the interactions of various brushstrokes


She was really pleased with the way she was able to
paint the idea of clouds in the sky here
Thank goodness she's now getting pretty good at setting up her paints. Using watercolour blocks means I don't need to help her masking-tape paper to the table to keep it from curling. We don't bother cleaning up afterwards most of the time, because the odds are she'll be back to paint again later that day at least once. The hair dryer (which speeds drying between different applications of paint) is permanently with her paints.

I'm guessing that the obsession will fade at some point, though the value of what she's been doing will never be lost. Then again, maybe her interest in painting will continue as strong and stable as her interest in violin has for more than a year now. This kid has a lot of sticktuitiveness!