Field Day

Field Day...is that still a thing? At the end of the school year, all the classes in each grade competed in a series of physical challenges.

If you were athletic, it was your Jam! Otherwise...you didn't look forward to it, because everyone in your grade got to see exactly how unathletic you really were.

As you could guess, I didn't look forward to it. 😅

 

Mixed Signals

My mother would unleash her anger on the kids when we did something wrong, and no more than five minutes later, she was offering to take us out for ice cream! 🍦

For the kids, it just gave us mixed signals! 🙃

Freedom

After being grounded for so long, I was absolutely ecstatic when I got passing grades on my next report card, not because of my grades, but because my parents would finally give me back my freedom! 😂

Truth be told, I know the school year is not officially over, but I felt it was about time to let Zack out of his punishment. 😉

Allowance

Grounded and confined to my room, I had plenty of time counting up my allowance...but that's about all I could do with it! My parents weren't about to let me go out of the house to SPEND it! 😅

Citation

I missed the era when most children played "Cowboys and Indians", but we definitely spent plenty of time pretending to be police officers! 😎👮‍♂️🚨

Everything is Fine

It was a bit embarrassing being grounded. When at school, I tried my best to give the impression everything was normal at home. 😅

Advice on Projects

Years ago, the town newspaper featured an article about a local artist whose career was animating cartoons for cereal commercials. I managed to contact the artist, and out of all our conversations, there is one piece of advice they gave that still resonates with me today.

They told me whatever I did for a career, make sure it doesn't take away from what I WANT to do.

See, their “day job” was working on commercials, which was very demanding. The deadlines were tight, and there were constant changes from the execs as to what they wanted in the commercial, causing the artist to spend extra hours revising their work. It was such a demanding job, they never had the time, energy, or creative inspiration to devote to the what they REALLY wanted to do, and that was oil painting.

The artist's advice has motivated my responses over the years when random people ask me to draw something specific. I'm not necessarily opposed to it, but I try and make it worth my while. Often, people are surprised about that, but I explain to them to work on their project, I have to shelve what I enjoy drawing. I'm no longer drawing what I want, but what THEY want, so I make sure the project is worth my time. If they aren't in agreement, then I'm free to continue to work on my own interests. 😉✏️

The Draw

It's still a shock to see people's reactions to my cartoons. 🥰

I've said before I look for opportunities to work on my art, so I often carry a sketchbook with me when I leave home. Instead of spending time on my phone, I work on my cartoons. People tend to walk by and comment when they see me at work. I have to admit, it's quite a motivation when random people compliment you on your artwork! 😊

Trouble

There were times I "tested the waters" to see what I could get away with while I was grounded. Occasionally, it worked, and I was able to slide back into my normal activites, but there were times it backfired, and I ended up tacking on more time to my sentence! 😳

Caught

Sunday nights, the family gathered to watch "The Wonderful World of Disney" on television...that is, unless we were grounded and not allowed to watch TV!

I tried to slip downstairs to watch a little from a distance, but I wasn't sneaky enough - I usually got caught! 😳😅 

Grounded...Still

It was always difficult having to explain I was grounded to my friends when they came by the house. 😮‍💨