Color My World

Salmon doesn't have much besides bars, churches, and gas stations (and not necessarily in that order). We do have two stop lights, one full-service grocery store, a Subway and Burger King chain fast food restaurants, and a King's department store. We used to have an Alco too, but in February it closed down; two months later, we were privileged to have a Shopko Hometown store open. We waited a few weeks to go, because the crowds were unbelievable after it first opened--I could tell because every time we drove by, the parking lot was overflowing with cars, and it wasn't appealing to have to fight the masses for a parking space or have a long wait in line just to go shopping there. When we finally did go there as a family at the end of April, we took our money and had a good shopping trip around the (nearly empty) store together. We all got something we wanted, but Kanyon's purchases surprised me the most.

When Kanyon was in Kindergarten, he completely HATED art. He hated coloring, drawing, and doing art projects. I'm not exaggerating about this: for example, one day, he freaked out so bad during art time that he was sent to the principal's office and placed in the isolation room where he had a 20 minute-long meltdown, and it all started because whatever he drew on the paper didn't look like what he'd imagined it would look like in his head, and he hated that he couldn't make it right. He's always been a logical child, not creative or artistic. But during this school year as a 2nd grader, he's started having an interest in drawing and coloring AND art projects. He's watched some of his classmates draw, which started his desire, and his interest in it has grown from there.

So the day we went to ShopKo in April, he took his money with the intent to buy art supplies. We spent a lot of time looking at all the different colors and prices, and he finally decided on a pack of 64 crayons, a pack of 18 paints, a box of bold markers, and colored chalk, and all for less than $15. When he came home, he was so in love with the box of crayons. He'd never had a box with so many color choices before. He spent the whole evening pulling each crayon out, reading the name, and saying what the color looked like it was meant for. Then he discovered the sharpener on the back, and for the next 3 days, he sharpened lots of our old crayons, and enjoyed making them look new again. He was truly happy with this box of crayons; it showed in his countenance, and in the way he talked about them. Then on the 3rd day, he organized all the crayons in the box by color-coordinating them, and declared that he wasn't going to use any of the crayons until 3rd grade next year because they're just too pretty to use now and he likes admiring them!    

All color coordinated!

After he was done organizing his crayons, he started using his other art supplies. He spent one morning painting lots of different pictures with his new paint colors (which got Micah to pull out some of his art supplies that he got for Christmas but hasn't used much yet), and Kanyon took the paintings to school the next day for show and tell so the whole class could see his new artwork that he was so proud of. 

the volcano, tree, and bulldozer are just a few of his paintings

And he used his new markers to make me a Mother's Day card...although I feel like the card pays more homage to ShopKo than me (which proves just how happy he was with his purchases at the store!).  ;)

I'm so happy that Kanyon has expanded his interests to include art, and that he has the desire to practice and increase his abilities to make better-looking art. Josh and I are both terrible at art, but we both have an appreciation for it! I'm excited that he's so willing to give it a try!