Artistic temperaments

I have started taking TS and TD to a weekly art class.

It's all very, well, twee (in the nicest possible fashion).

At the start, the teacher makes an attempt to introduce an overarching theme for the week's lesson.

Before she has finished her first sentence ("So, if you were going to the beach, you might take with you a buck..."), TS and the TD are yelling impatiently: "We do painting now!"

[The teacher has perfected the art of the smile-through-gritted-teeth.]

The class begins. The teacher's instructions are usually something like: "Now, carefully paint a long black line to make a stripe on the page...oh, Josh! That's super! It already looks like a zebra!".

Meantimes, TS and TD have tossed their paintbrushes to one side in favour of immersing both their hands in the tray of black paint, so as to ensure a proper smearing all over the paper, leaving not a trace of white background.

"Oh, darling! What a lovely painting!" exclaims TH when the artists return home with their efforts. "What is it?"

I quickly chip in: "It's a tiger/beach ball/hedgehog, Daddy!"

"Oh! Of course!", TH responds, merrily.

Still, Jackson Pollock never made it big by colouring inside the lines, did he? (Hoodathunkit...my kids: abstract expressionists!)