You guys may not know this, but my father, myself, and my eldest daughter all attended art schools at some point. We're a multigenerational family of artists and musicians - and yes, our house is exactly as "interesting" as you might think. You know that stereotype about artists being a little on the weird side ? ... Yeaaaaaaahhhh....
So when Reddit user I_Have_No_Clout asked
let's just say I got to go on a fun little walk down memory lane with the family. For a while there I had an obsession with taking the cutie marks off of My Little Pony dolls and re-painting them into things like zombies, murder victims, skeletons ... ya know, the usual stuff little girls are into.
These art teachers, parents, and others who spend some serious time with kids shared the sorts of things their little artists come up with - and honestly, it's inspiring in a weird sort of way. Might be time to break out the canvases!
Menstrual Majesty
One of my students, a 6 year old girl, went on a phase of drawing her family members with periods. She had probably just learned about it. So it was just loads of family pictures with everybody cheerfully standing around in pools of blood with blood on their pants.
It was unnerving to try and explain to any visiting teachers and parents why there was routinely a picture on some wall with her standing in a pool of red.
Mommy Pterodactyl
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One of my students, a small kid, drew a giant pterodactyl with pendulous, red-nippled breasts. When I asked him what he had drawn, he said, "This is my mommy."
Yugo Kid
This is not creepy, but for me weirdly cute. My significant other held a few art classes in primary school. There was this kid with issues, couldn't speak well, couldn't write, horrible at every subject, but he could do some damn amazing drawings. Colors of them, perspective, measures, this kid was a proper talent.
Here's the catch - he was really into one old Yugoslavian type of car called Yugo 45, he was obsessed with it. So all of his drawings were Yugo 45 themed somehow. Christmas drawing with Santa Claus pulling presents from Yugo's trunk, war themed picture of Yugo 45 being run over by a tank, summer picture of Yugo as a submarine, while on beach in the distance you can see a couple sunbathing on, guess fricking what, Yugo's roof.
Drawings were absolutely great, but what always got me amazed the most is how this little fellow was able to pull every goddamn subject to be themed about Yugo. We loved that kid. And we hope that he drives that car one day.
Save The Tigers
I think I creeped out my art teacher. We were given the theme "jungle animals" and so I drew my favourite animal at the time which was tigers. I was obsessed, my whole bedroom was tiger themed.
I was also in a bit of an emo phase so I decided to make my drawing about tigers being poached and endangered; so I drew a sort of montage of tigers roaring while covered in blood, standing in a lake of blood with the words "save me" written in my best scratchy horror looking font I could muster, all over the page.
He walked around class and looked at all our drawings and when he came to mine he said nothing, exhaled out of his nose and moved along.
Gangster Elmo
I used to work in behavioral healthcare with children. One of the clients that I worked with had a talent for drawing. He was obsessed with Sesame Street and... gangster rap.
He was this developmentally delayed, skinny white boy who would rap while drawing Elmo and Cookie Monster getting into a shoot out with the cops. He did this while at school and the school counselor insisted on a safety evaluation to make sure he wasn't going to hurt anyone. He was never violent, just liked gangster Elmo.
Francis Frosting The Eclairs
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I suppose it's more funny and wholesome than it is weird, but I wanted to share nonetheless. I had a student we will call Francis. I taught him for three years, from grade one through three (he then transferred to a different school).
Francis was fascinating and totally odd - but in a great way. He was hyper-intelligent and light years ahead of his classmates. He had very specific and unusual tastes for a young kid - for example, his favorite show was Ken Burns' Civil War documentary and his favorite snack was brie cheese. He quoted literature. He studied US astronauts and could (and often did) rattle off details about their lives ("James Lovell's favorite food is shrimp cocktail!"). He was one of my favorite students.
During one particular art class, I created a picnic scene in the middle of the classroom and was teaching the kids how to draw still life. The one rule was that they had to draw what they saw in front of them. Francis being Francis, he grew bored with the lesson and took his picnic drawing in a slightly different direction...
When I asked him what he was doing, he said (read with a very heavy lisp) "I'm making an upper-class picnic, with high quality, organic items. There's suckling pig - look, there's an apple in its mouth! There's gourmet lobster, cherries, shrimps, Swiss almond cake, escargots, sparkling water, and cocktail wienies!"
Me: (trying to stifle my laughter) "And who is that person?"
Student: "That's Mr. Carson."
Me: "Who is Mr. Carson?"
Student: "The BUTLER, of COURSE" (rolls eyes, sighs heavily). "Do we have a chocolate-y brown crayon? I need to frost the eclairs."
The Entire Process
A girl, 9 yrs, was doodling, and looking at the drawing afterwards I could immediately see her process:
1.She drew a little dancing dude, arms and legs apart
2. She drew him a little wiener
3. She freaked out upon seeing the wiener. Her first idea to fix it? add more wieners!
4. She must've really freaked once she saw the penis-udder-frankenstein she had created, so she switched to a marker and drew a skirt over the wiener, added a girly hairdo to the head and added some eyelashes.
Hands All Over
The assignment was about making a painting about something that's been in the news. Blonde haired blue eyed girl (and ex model) picked Epstein. She painted a blonde haired girl with blue eyes with hands all over her body...
More sad than weird or creepy. But it still heavily alarmed people.
- streep36
A Little Dismemberment
I taught at an art summer camp for 8-10 year olds when I was 17 and a little boy drew himself having his penis cut off (He proudly explained this to me so I'm not just misinterpreting a kid's drawing). Reported it to the supervisor because I thought it might be a sign of something going on at home and she just shrugged and had it hung up with the rest.
Sweeney Todd
Had a student who only drew Sweeney Todd related things. She was special needs and it was her special interest. Unfortunately she refused to even be in the class if she wasn't able to make her projects Sweeney Todd related. And so, I had to present to the parents a whole line of beautiful proportioned face studies and then one montage of a guy getting his head chopped off and eaten.
Always Been A Dragon
My Sister is a 4th-grade Teacher.
She asked her students to draw a picture of themselves. One Girl drew a dragon. My sister asked her "Are you a dragon?" and the girl with a straight face says:
"In my mind, I have always been a dragon, it's why my family hates me."
- obievil
The Best Possible Outcome
During my very first teaching job, a girl in grade 2 drew a picture of herself hanging by the neck with people laughing and pointing at her ☹ That was very disturbing. I can't even imagine thinking of that when I was 7. This girl also hardly ever came to school, and when she did, she'd show up at noon with a lunchable in hand. So she had basically no friends because she was never there.
I showed her aunt (who had custody of her) and she was less concerned than I thought she should be. Ended up calling child services and after I made that call, she was at school every day on time. Coming to school consistently was the best thing for her. She made friends and her reading level went up.
The Project
I used to teach music and art at a catholic school. My last year there, we had a program where 5th grade would draw a picture and the high school class would turn it into a sculpture. One of my 5th grade girls was obsessed with Pennywise, the evil clown from It and drew him.
Now imagine my shock when, a few weeks later, I turn the light on in my room and a 7 foot tall evil clown was starring right at me. High schooler went wild with this one and it was just terrifying.
"Booblies"
I once had some kids draw out their favourite superheroes and there was this one kid (6) who drew hulk and it was nice and all except I noticed these big circles on his chest.
So I asked the kid about it and with the biggest smile on his face he responded, "booblies" I didn't know what to do man.
- looppIV
Elmo's Revenge
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For a perspective drawing, two of my 8th grade students did a collab. One drew a peaceful town with Elmo in a window singing the classic "La la la" music. And a TV saying "Escaped killer" with a mugshot of Elmo.
The other student makes the same town but with radiation and bombs dropping from the sky. Then has an Elmo silhouette in the street saying "Elmo's world now."
They titled it "Elmo's revenge"
