Using the black marker, I would ask her to suggest a character, animal or object for me to draw. Once I had the idea, the drawing would take no more than a minute. I would then hand it over for her to colour in. When she had finished, we would cut the image out and stick it to a blank wall using Blu Tack.
I should explain that by then I was divorced, and my children moved freely between our two homes, which were only ten minutes apart. Over time, that wall became covered with a growing cast of handmade characters. As new drawings appeared, others were replaced, and for years the wall evolved into a colourful record of our time together.
Eventually, some of the drawings had fallen off, and the room was ready for decorating. It seemed the right moment to paint over the wall and start afresh.
A few days later, my daughter, now a teenager, arrived and discovered what I had done.
She was horrified.
To me, it was just a wall. To her, it was a scrapbook of memories. She became quite emotional, telling me how much she had loved those afternoons and how every drawing reminded her of a moment we had shared together.
I felt dreadful.
The following day, I searched under chairs and in bins and drawers, rescuing as many of the surviving cut-outs as I could find. I scanned them all and assembled them into an A3 poster, which I gave to her as a keepsake. You can see the result here.
As a footnote, that little girl who sat beside me colouring in those drawings went on to gain a First Class Honours degree from the Slade School of Fine Art.
So perhaps drawing with your children can lead to great things, but even if it doesn’t, the memories certainly will.
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