Today was the annual chalk festival and art show for DG’s school. Last year she didn’t make it into the chalk festival but she did this year. This isn’t her chalk drawing, though. This was a quick painting she did on the back of a Nordstrom gift box. She didn’t have a surface until she discovered the cardboard inside, which was perfectly toned for this black and white wonder.

Stepping into Mom brag mode for a minute, I just have to say I was totally impressed with it. Just a couple of hours made a work of art. Her teacher was also impressed, and hung it with paintings done on other, more permanent surfaces for the show. Her reference photo is also her blog header.

Not bad, eh? Here’s the chalk painting:

The funniest part of this was seeing her when she got home. She had from 7:30 AM to 3:30 PM to complete this, start to finish. She packed up her backpack with water, food, old t-shirts for blending, and her reference photo. When I dropped her off, she was my usual pretty, clean, sweet-looking girl. When I picked her up, she looked like she had crawled out of a chimney. Seriously.

Worse yet, she had rolled the cuffs on her jeans and forgotten to put sunscreen on the exposed part, so she now has the weirdest stripes on her legs where her socks end and her cuffs began! Oh, and another tiger stripe on her back from bending over to blend and having the shirt ride up enough to leave a 2″ lobster-red strip of sunburn. Poor thing was in mega-pain, but still said it was worth every minute.

It certainly was to me. They only choose five from each art class, plus the honors art students for this. She didn’t make it in last year, so this was a real triumph.

I’m so grateful for teachers like her yearbook/art teacher! When I see what she’s accomplished in such a short period of time, it just knocks me over.

Oh, and did I mention that she’s taking drum lessons? Yep…and not from Sticks either. That would be an unmitigated disaster. She’s taking them from his first drum teacher, and seems to enjoy it.

So just about the time Sticks moves out, she’ll graduate to the drumset. You heard it here first.

(Oh, and the pink ribbon is in memory of the mom of one of her friends, who passed away earlier in the school year from breast cancer. Tragic, but neat to see the kids all support their friend and remember her mother.)