Tap n' Flap Sensory

Life with a teenage artist 🎨 Nobody warns you about this bit.When your child turns out to be artistic, you imagine sketchbooks, pencils and maybe a cute little easel in the corner of their bedroom.
You do NOT imagine living inside Hobbycraft after it's been burgled.
Maria isn't someone who occasionally likes to draw. She is an ARTIST. Which apparently means every available surface in our house is potentially an art supply storage facility.

We've bought storage. So. Much. Storage. Trolleys. Shelves. Pots. Boxes. Organisers. Pencil cases.
Maria's preferred storage system? Wherever she last used it.

There are canvases leaning against walls, canvases behind other canvases, sketchbooks everywhere and random pieces of paper that I absolutely daren't throw away because the scruffy bit of paper I've just found on the floor is apparently VERY IMPORTANT.

Then things start disappearing from the kitchen.
Every so often I'll open the cupboard and think...
Where are all the glasses? I don't even bother asking anymore. I know. They're in Maria's bedroom. Except they're no longer glasses. They've been promoted to art equipment.

I'll find one three days later containing murky grey brown water that looks like it's developed its own ecosystem, with six paintbrushes sticking out of it.
And once a perfectly good drinking glass has contained paint water, I'm sorry, but in my head it's never truly a drinking glass again.

Another one bites the dust. But does the art stay in her bedroom? Of course it doesn't. It travels. Paint on door handles. Charcoal on doors.
Random black fingerprints appearing on white surfaces. How does charcoal travel from a sketchbook to a completely different part of the house? Nobody knows.

At this point I'm beginning to suspect the art supplies are moving around independently.
And don't even get me started on THE SINKS. Bathroom sink. Shower room sink.

JUST PICK ONE, MARIA. Please. Pick a sink.

And then, just when I'm wondering whether I'll ever have a clean door handle, complete set of drinking glasses or normal looking sink again... look at what she's actually creating.

And that's when all my moaning falls apart.
Because bloody hell, she can draw. She can paint.

She can take a completely blank piece of paper or canvas and turn it into something that didn't exist.

She experiments with pencil, charcoal and paint. She tries different styles and techniques and she's constantly creating something.

And I'm so incredibly proud to say that she's even sold some of her artwork.

Someone has looked at something my daughter made with her own hands and thought:

I want that in my home. And that's pretty bloody special.
So maybe when I walk into her bedroom, I'm not actually looking at a messy 14 year olds room.

I'm looking at an artist's studio. Admittedly, an artist's studio that's slowly annexing the rest of my house...

But an artist's studio nonetheless.

One day there might not be canvases stacked against the walls.
There might not be brushes drying in random cups.
I might actually own a complete set of drinking glasses again. Her bedroom might even be tidy.

And knowing me, I'll probably miss the absolute bloody chaos.

So I'll keep buying the sketchbooks.

I'll keep finding places for the canvases.

I'll keep wiping charcoal off the doors.

I'll sacrifice the occasional drinking glass.

I'll keep scrubbing paint off the handles.

And I'll keep being ridiculously proud of her.

Because I'd never want her to stop creating.

But Maria...

For the love of God.

JUST PICK A BLOODY SINK. 😂🎨

I’d like to introduce you all to my friend, Gupta.
A few people have had a good laugh at the fact that I didn’t just use ChatGPT... I had gave him a name, an age, a nationality, a wardrobe and an entire personality. 😂
So, since Gupta now seems to be becoming a character in his own right, I thought he deserved a proper intro