"A Lesson on Frustration"

Today was our first official day of school. One of my students has been chomping at the bit for weeks and I've occasionally "let" that student do a little work ahead but everyone else started today.

This year we are using My Father's World Creation to the Greeks as our base. We are excited about it because we really liked MFW Exploring Countries and Cultures last year. There was lots of intro stuff to do today.

One thing that I am looking forward to this year is using God and the History of Art. Today we covered the introduction and got to do "Lesson #1 - A Lesson on Frustration." The lesson explained how becoming an artist takes a lot of practice and how artists are often frustrated with the work that they do, never thinking that it is good enough. The lesson explained that acknowledging that frustration is just a part of being an artist will help you "be able to relax and enjoy the learning process involved in drawing, coloring and painting." The assignment for today was to draw and color a butterfly using only our mouths like Joni Eareckson Tada. It was pretty challenging and sure did make us appreciate the fact that, for most of the rest of our lessons, we'll be able to use our hands that work much better than our mouths.

Several of my students chose to draw butterflies with their hands after finishing their mouth drawings.

Reading this lesson and doing this activity made me think about my own frustration with my various jobs. The lesson told of the frustrations of various artists and their displeasure in their own work, even though others would have looked on them as masterpieces. I need to be careful not to be too critical of my own work knowing that frustration is also a part of being a wife, mom, teacher, cook, friend, writer, etc. I need to not get overwhelmed with my own frustration at my imperfect work but relax and enjoy the learning process involved in growing in all the areas that I have been called to. Funny how God can speak to me even through my kids' art lesson :)