Discovering the local art academy

On Monday night we discovered the Hoover Point Art Academy.

The teacher had me sold in just 10 minutes, not only with her ability to deal respectfully with a 5-year-old, but also for her ability to revolutionize Evangeline's approach to drawing. We'll be attending drop-in lessons once a week for the next several weeks, but after that we will enroll her in a regular art class at the gallery.

The lesson began as Ana, the instructor and studio owner, asked Evangeline to draw a picture. She chose Mulan, her favorite Disney character of the moment, and with the color pencils drew the way one usually does with a pencil. She drew the outline of Mulan's head, her hair and her outfit, adding little details like Mulan's eyes, nose, mouth and eyebrows.

Ana showed Evangeline a different approach to drawing, drawing lines together and deliberately, as if she were using a crayon; and then had her draw a school of smiling fish.

After that, she had Evangeline draw water around the fish using a mix of green, blue and purple wash pencils. Then -- this will be obvious to artists, but it was something new to me -- she had Evangeline dab the picture very lightly with the tip of a wet brush, and the washables turned to paint, creating a nice water effect.

I had never seen this kind of color pencil before, and was almost as taken with it as Evangeline was.

The whole session took about an hour, but held Evangeline's rapt attention the entire time. As I said on my way out, the downside is that from now on, Evangeline's going to tell me that we have the wrong paper, the wrong pencils, that I'm not taping her paper to a cardboard backing, and so on.

But I'm pleased. I think she's genuinely gifted artistically, and I'm excited to give her the chance to pursue that gift and develop it.