Question #1 - Revisit Childhood Artwork

Do you have a piece of artwork that you made when you were young that has been saved by you or your family? As you revisit and remember what was important within that particular piece of artwork or the making of it, what do you make of it now? What is important about the piece as you revisit it?

Post: Eliza Hunter
As a child I drew in my sketch book all the time, usually four to five drawings a day. I used to take it with me everywhere I went and always created scenes, characters, landscapes, and compositions. Over the years I saved all of theses sketch books and every once and a while I'll pull them out and flip through them. It is amazing to me to see how creative and dedicated I was with my drawing. A child's imagination is so incredible.
At the time of drawing them, I was just...drawing! Taking the idea in my mind and going with it. Once satisfied with a picture, I would flip the page and go right on and draw a completely different scene. Perhaps a jungle scene with monkeys and toucans, trees and snakes. I wasn't looking at anything, I was drawing from my mind. I feel that as I have grown older I find it harder to just draw. If i wanted to draw a monkey now, I might have to do research on what kind of monkey I want to draw and get some idea of how to draw it to accurately represent the figure. 
Looking back at these sketch books as a whole really make me proud of the desire and passion I have always had for art. I love to see the way my mind worked at that age on page. Also the skills I acquired throughout those years are exposed in my sketch books. From beginning to end, I can see how I advanced. 
In addition to my imagination and skills, remembering where I was at the time of drawing brings back the feeling of being a kid. For example, sitting in my mom's hair salon, I can remember the picture I drew. When ever I look at it and am automatically transported back to being seven years old and bored out of my mind while my mom cut her hair. My sketch books mean a lot to me and I would be very upset if I were to ever loose any of them. They hold a lot of history and have recently taught me a lot about myself as a kid. Its really fun to look back at them and remember what it was like to be that age and draw those pictures.

Response from peer: Janina Smith
I can completely relate, my grandmother saved this terrible doodle i did when i was about 12 and she hung it on her fridge. i think it's still there to this day. i think its great to see that my work means so much to her i just wish she had saved and displayed something on the fridge that i actually worked hard on!

Author:

Rachel Bullard

My mom always saved many of the pieces of artwork that I did throughout school, they would get hung up on the fridge and around the house. My mom always loved everything I did. The one I remember the most was the pictures I would draw of my family. I remember that when making the drawings of my family it was very important to me to make the people look like they could actually be the different members of my family. When I revisit the picture now I notice that I used hair styles and color as well as height to make the difference between the people in my family. I think that it was just very important to me that I show everyone in my family, which is why I think I even included the dogs that we had at the time and the goldfish, because my mother always stressed animals as also being a part of the family. I think looking at my drawings from when I was a child really makes sense the kind of artist I am today. There is an attention to real life in my drawings from when I was little and as I grew up, although they aren't amazing, you can tell that it was a combination of memory and observation drawing. It intrigues me to think that you can tell so much about a childs personality and even a bit of how they will grow up from early childhood drawings.

Embedded Stories Within A Family's Saved Artwork