Childhood Masterpieces

I am interrupting my regularly scheduled blog to share some treasures I found in an old box. My mom has been saving great works of art from throughout my life and I have recently stumbled upon some of my early creations that I couldn't resist putting on the internet.

To help you understand the context of the following masterpieces, here is me, age 5, pictured with my kindergarten classroom's resident stuffed raccoons. As I recall, my teacher was all about the raccoons. 

...And here is an early self portrait. I am wearing my favorite dress with stripes and apples. I would bet that I was wearing that very dress when I drew this stunning portrait. To this day, all of my self portraits show me wearing whatever I was actually wearing the day I paint them. Apparently it has been a long-standing tradition in my work. As a side note, I don't really have blue eyes. I don't know why I drew myself with blue eyes.

This charming sketch is an insight into how I felt about art criticism as a child. The boy is saying, "Your picture is stupid" and I, wearing my extremely puffy-sleeved dress, respond, "Is not." 

Apparently, Rapunzel rode my bus in elementary school.

One recurring theme in my early work was mermaids. I drew many mermaids. Here are seven mermaids.

This appears to be a fairy or angel(?) seducing this dude with a flower.

Here she has help from her tiny friend. The guy now has a wing with heart on it! I think her seduction tactics are working!

Here, a woman with every natural hair color you can have presents a flower to this extremely pointy eared rabbit. More seduction and intrigue?

Various animals appeared frequently in my work, like rabbits...

...mice...

...poodles (playing kidpix on reeeeeaaaaallly old school computers)...

... pet hamsters (of which my sister and I had several, as illustrated in this multimedia collage piece)...

...dinosaurs...

...and dragons, but by far my favorite animal was the unicorn:

I found many unicorn pictures I drew as a child. I was all about the unicorns! In fact, this piece with the girl riding a unicorn was accompanied by a story, an early artist statement perhaps. I can only imagine it was part of an assignment to think about what we would become if we could build a cocoon and transform into something else, like a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly. I wrote the following (edited for spelling and punctuation):

"If I could build a cocoon I would want to become a white unicorn with a pink tail and a pink mane. I would save a princess in distress. If someone was hurt, I would make them all better. I like being a unicorn."

I was not aware that I had such lofty ambitions as a child until I rediscovered this piece.

Finally, I would like to conclude this post with a story I wrote in first grade about Anne Frank. I am pretty sure I didn't actually know who Anne Frank was at the time. I included my text with these illustrations (again, edited for spelling and punctuation).

"Anne Frank" by Laura Meilman

"When Anne Frank was 13, one of her friends gave her a black book. She made it her diary and named it kitty."

"She wrote in it every day and she wrote something like this, "Dear Kitty, today my friend said, 'I'm buying ice cream.'" She had lots of friends and was very, very happy but..."

"She died in France."

The back cover is decorated with a continuing birthday present theme. I am pretty sure that I just thought it was cool that she had a diary named Kitty and I sort of ignored the rest of her life story. I would like to call your attention to the funeral illustration, which shows her grave with a big cross on it. Yup, I don't think I actually knew who she was when I wrote this circa age 6.

Well, I hope you have enjoyed my early work. Perhaps it has given you some insight into my origins as an artist, both thematically and stylistically. I considered posting some of the anime I drew in high school, but I don't think I need to subject you all to that.