Her Artistic Vision

At 3 years, 7 months old, Ania has shown she has such a natural artistic eye.... And with that, I will remind you she really only has good vision in one eye. Her left ( cancerous) eye is a mystery- some days it seems like she can see some out of it while other days, nothing at all. All thanks to the floating tumor seeds. With that being said, her impaired vision does not seem to hinder her artistic vision. She has been drawing pretty detailed pictures since she was probably 2 years old. It wasn't until recently though that I was inspired to dust off my old paintbrushes and easel and let her try her hand at painting. We quickly discovered how magnificent her talent really is! 

Mike and I are both fairly artistic.  He is a great sketch artist and draws fabulous shapes thanks to his skills as a geometry teacher. Throughout my childhood I spent a lot of time drawing and painting in my grandmothers art studio and ultimately got a minor in fine arts during college in addition to my major in psychology.  It has been a few years since I've felt inspired to paint so to experience this reemergence of desire to create come about is wonderful- and I owe it to my Dainty Warrior girl Ania :)

Last week, my newborn nephew had to go to the hospital with his own health emergency.  We felt helpless as he and his parents live far from us. Out of nowhere, I had an image of a rocket ship in my head and felt the need to create it and have Ania paint it for her new cousin. I told  Mike about my idea and he quickly whipped out a rocket ship drawing onto a 11x14 stretched paint canvas. 

I traced over it with a sharpie marker so it resembled a sort of coloring book page for Ania to paint. I dug out my old acrylics and paintbrushes , and we went to town! 

Ania selected all the colors and painted the majority of the painting with a little help from me around some of the smaller details and smooth edges. 

Watching her, I was so proud! And the finished product was just adorable- we knew her baby cousin would love it!

Ever since we had this amazing experience of painting take off like her rocket ship, we have been painting almost daily! This past week, Ania has asked around mid morning if we could paint. We've been accomplishing all our art while baby brother naps :) Typically, I have offered her a couple suggestions of subject matter to paint and she will choose what sounds like fun to her! I try to keep my drawings simple, coloring book style. I like the black sharpie look in the background of the paintings because it is a reminder that this is a child's artwork- even though I think she is beyond her years in talent ;)

Enjoy a few snapshots of her work in progress and finished:

A simple lined drawing to start

Admiring her work! 

Getting messy!

So proud! Once it dried, She walked around several times that day holding this one up saying how much she loved her rainbow painting :) 

Butterfly

Someone woke up early from his nap and wanted to help :)

Spreading her wings! 

So, we've got quite a collection growing and friends and family putting in requests/commissions for some one of a kind "Dainty Warrior Art"! It's very exciting to watch her work and such good art therapy to distract us all from her cancer. Who knows, maybe some day she will have a gallery showing of all her masterpieces ;) 

God Bless,

Erica

PS- We are working on building an "inventory" of sorts but I of course wait for her lead for when it's time to paint :) please share subject matter ideas in the comments section of this blog and maybe you will see it come to life in a painting soon! Thanks!