
When I was 10, almost 11, I did NOT draw like this!
My pencils were No.2 school pencils with hard erasers that made ugly, dark, red marks on my papers. When I painted, I used those white plastic water colors you could buy at Woolworth's (I'm from KY). The palette, if you could call it that, contained the primary colors...blue, red, yellow, an orange, a warm purple, black,
and white. We never had paper you could paint on. The standard white typing paper (yes...typewriters), or old construction paper (from Woolworth's). I didn't know anything about oil paints. Occasionally I smelled them at my Aunt's house when she was working on a painting. But, those were "adult" paints. Not for a 10 year old.
When my daughter was 18 months old she sat at my art desk and drew a perfect circle. Then another, and another. I thought, "Ok...Maybe 18 month olds can draw shapes." By the time she was 4 she was copying her Dad while he drew storyboards. It came naturally for her to tell a story on paper. She made sure to include anything that was important to the story...including props. Eventually we started her in a casual art class on the weekends. It quickly became her favorite place to go. She loved all of the different mediums. Now that she has been in that class for a while, she is in a class with adults. Her favorite medium is oil. And she loves to paint portraits of her favorite female actresses. This one is Liv Tyler from Lord of the Rings.