Persevering Through Mistakes

For some children it can be very difficult and frustrating to persevere through a work that seems to have taken too many wrong turns. This particular painting belongs to a 4th grade artist who is very self-motivated. Towards the end of this work she made a few smudges in key areas with black. Because she had spent a great deal of time on it, when I noticed it was no longer in front of her halfway through class, I questioned her on what happened. She retrieved a crumbled ball of paper from the garbage can. After un-crumpling it and discussing how the work might be rescued, I helped her mask the smudges with white paint and she corrected the details. Because this student was not overly emotional about the work, it was easy for her to go back and finish it up. In the process she also learned a few tricks about saving a botched painting in the future.