William, my grandson loves to paint in watercolors. He actually loves the water most of all, I think.  He keeps dipping his paintbrush into the water well after the paper is saturated. As his mentor, and in his best interest, I eventually had to put the ‘clean’ water dish out of his reach.

After he started in blue and yellow ochre, I squeezed a bit of red into a dish and suggested he try that. He saw where I got the tube of paint and noticed the other tubes of color in my paint box. I don’t immediately understand what he says, but he indicated the colors he wanted by name and I confirmed by pointing to each tube asking, “Is this the one?” until he said, “Yes.”  I put a dab of that paint directly onto the paper and he did his job with the brush.

He did ask for the color ‘white’ very clearly, however.  He had just played with a dab of red that I put on the paper.  I placed a glob of white next to this field and, as he proceeded to play with it he said, “Bye, bye white.”

I love Will’s innocent process and its connection with his developing language.

Bye Bye White
Watercolor by William