I've been busy with vacation (preparation, the vacation itself, recovery and catch-up at work - whew!) and missed some stuff. Wave, I love your pen sketches, you capture the dynamics of people so well, even if they're sitting still. I know that doesn't quite make sense, but that's what I think, so there! Mirasol, what a lovely teapotty, flowery space you imagined. I especially like the clear pot with plants inside, as a little terrarium. Jitter, I'm envious.
Re teachers squelching creativity - in kindergarten at Christmas we were given appropriately-themes pictures to colour; I got a candy cane. This was on white paper, so I was left with a problem: candy canes are generally red and white (maybe a bit of green too), but white crayon on white paper doesn't really show. I mulled this over for a bit, and decided to use the "opposite colour" - I coloured the white parts black. Pity I didn't know about colour negatives at that point, or I might have coloured the red parts blue! We had to show our efforts to the teacher, who got quite annoyed with me and said, "Candy canes aren't black!" and made me go fix it. She didn't think to ask me why I'd coloured it black. I was a painfully shy and unassertive child, so I dutifully "fixed" it. The next year I was called back to the art room to fix another picture, this time a drawing of a barn in which I'd painstakingly drawn all the nail heads. When I painted it, they were hidden, but I couldn't be bothered to put them back, especially as it would be wet on wet paint. I thought it was a bit unfair of the teacher to insist that I do so. So funny the things we remember, and for so long!
