My preschooler, that is. Niccolo is back from his holiday with the grandparents (the “nonni”) and, of course, we have resumed our artistic endeavours. Just now, he has three favourite activities, in this order:

1. “drawing” letters and words. No matter how much I call it writing, he insists he is drawing. He started off “drawing” single letters, but has now graduated to two or three words (papa, mummy, nonno). He has also tried painting the letter N with a brush.

Look, I have drawn the word papa!

2. painting with a big brush. I had a stroke of genius one day (if I say so myself..) and bought him a brush and a roller of the type used for household paint. He loves them both—especially the brush—because it allows him to paint in big fat strokes.

Big brush strokes are great

3. collage. I guess it’s in the genes, as I love collageing, but he has really got into it recently. He is not quite making shapes out of his scraps of paper yet, but loves to mix and match colours and textures. In the latest collage he made—yesterday, for nonno—he even added cardboard and a few scraps of fabric.

Oh and all this art is paying off at least on one front. It may be a coincidence but he has become a lot more skilled in describing colours. Yesterday he told me he went with nonno to the market and bought some “dark gold” honey. Then he qualified: “It was between golden and brown.” Which is already a better description than my colour-challenged husband can ever hope to achieve!