were you creative as a kid???

[petesign]

I was a day dreamer, and couldn't ever pay attention in class. All of my papers and homework would be covered in doodles.. just shapes, swirls, etc all along the margins and edges. I always liked to draw, but have never been worth a flip at it... I also liked to take things apart to see how they worked, and then put them back together. Sometimes, it didn't work out so well (a few tv remotes and remote controlled anythings come to mind)

 

[signmeup]

PS
Adrian I totally hear you about the gym teacher thing.
What a power trip for me when I was in 11th grade to tell my c*nty gym teacher that no, I would not be painting a mural of gymnasts in her office that year.

I'm really just jealous. What other profession do you get 50 Gs a
year for throwing dodge balls at high school dweebs? Then there's the 2 month holiday every summer. You get off work at 3pm. If it snows... you got it... no school.

Shudda been a gym teacher.

 

[Marlene]

I took things apart - basically everything I could get my hands on - my brother caught me trying to hacksaw open a 3006 bullet once

me too, I used to take apart anything I could get my hands on. I also like to make things. I saw a show on how the atom bomb was made back when I was 10 and decided to make my on version of it. they showed how they had to separate the materials and then bring them together to make it explode. I took a medicine bottle and put vinegar in the bottom with some glitter and then cut a thin piece of cardboard the size of the bottle and spooned baking soda onto that. I then up the lid on and slammed the whole thing down hard on the table. the mess that came out was all glittery and I thought really pretty but the smell and the fact that it went everywhere didn't impress my parents bery much.

I was just wondering how many of knew as a kid that we would never grow up to be accountants or lawyers as we knew that would never be the place for us?

 

[SignManiac]

Absolutely... I grew up in Pensacola Florida, and there was an old clay pit about a mile from our house. I use to go there and pick up dried slabs of clay, then carve with a knife all kinds of designs and drawings into the face. I was constantly drawing from the age of five. By the time I hit elementary school, I learned to knit on the way to school in the back of the bus, and then I'd sell my creations to the other kids. My first business you could say. I hand drew posters and book covers and sold them to the other kids. I also carved rubber erasers into cars with a razor blade. Used staples for the wheels and would draw racing stripes on them with a pen.

My father had a construction company and would bring home leftovers of aluminum siding and I would build boats from it using tin snips, screws, and caulking. I use to build giant kites from visqueen plastic he had for tarps. I thought a clear see through kites were cool when it was lightening out. I didn't know about Benjamin Franklin at the time.

My grandmother lived down the street and taught me how to paint with oils. I won every art contest in school except for one. A third grade teacher accused my of not painting a submission I entered once, she said it was too good for a kid my age. Man I was pissed off at that bitch. Well I guess that's why she was a teacher and not an artist.

All of that creativity carried me through my entire life, even more so today. The best thing it taught me was problem solving which I use every day. I see things

 

[graphicmaniac]

Mom use to take paper and pencils for me on long trips....starting at 5 - 6 years old.
Kept me out of trouble....ha.
Drew on the margins of my notebooks...all the time.
Went to College....and like Jillbeans said, found out I wasn't the best out there...ha.
That was kinda depressing.
I now work at a larger sign Co.,...been here for many years.
I've done vinyl work...and now do prepress, digital....a little sales...design, etc.

I still work on my art at home when I get time......still love it....keeps me sane, actually.

 

[Bigdawg]

I was a draw-er too... if a pencil or pen was in my hands I was doodling. Then in middle school our Social Studies book had a brief chapter on marketing and why it worked. I was hooked - I always knew that i wanted to be a part of that. Used to do oil paintings, but sadly - I've learned I'm a better copycat than anything else when it comes to that.

Nowadays I'm just another sign whore...

 

[Pat Whatley]

I pinstriped my mom's brand new car with a permanent marker after seeing an ad in a comic book for getting rich customizing cars. I was 7. I still remember sitting in a chair in the middle of the driveway for HOURS while my parents worked on getting the marker off.

Nowadays I'm just another sign whore...

Hey, whores get paid. Sign sluts work for free.

 

[MikePro]

Hey, whores get paid.

 

[showcase 66]

I pinstriped my mom's brand new car with a permanent marker after seeing an ad in a comic book for getting rich customizing cars. I was 7. I still remember sitting in a chair in the middle of the driveway for HOURS while my parents worked on getting the marker off.

I did the same thing to my moms car when I was6. I just copied what some of her friends did with shoe polish on the windows including writing welcome home baby boy on the trunk of the car. It was like 4 days after my brother was born. I had never seen my mom that mad. I also learned what the belt was used for other than empty threats.

 

["Deposit Please"]

I was Creative and destructive...all in the same time.

 

[Craig Sjoquist]

I was .. but in public school you not allowed to be in art class, I can up with a sculpture that was ahead of the times , was told not correct.. I stopped going after art went to being architect full speed till 25 changed to a sign painter. found out then how creative I was as a kid then, sure wish I would have not listen to others. I'd probably been a sign painter 10 years earlier.

 

[Marlene]

I was .. but in public school you not allowed to be in art class, I can up with a sculpture that was ahead of the times , was told not correct.. I stopped going after art went to being architect full speed till 25 changed to a sign painter. found out then how creative I was as a kid then, sure wish I would have not listen to others. I'd probably been a sign painter 10 years earlier.

it's like sign making is what a lot of us were wired to do as it is an outlet for all kinds of creative urges. I'll never have a painting hanging in a museum but my "art" is all over the place. we drive around the state and can be in a town that only has a store and a population of 6 and ta da, there's my work hanging there. I do signs for Coca-Cola so I'm every where and it still gives me a kick when I see something I've done in some out of the way place.

I did a sign for a diner in the town where my daughter lives and she told me she thought is was me from the style. pretty cool when you really think about it.

 

[Tim Kingston]

In a PM with another member, I told her a story of a teacher giving me a hard time when I was a kid because I was a creative kid and didn't fit the mold set up for how kids were suppose to be. this was my story, what's yours? have a teacher or others give you a hard time for being "different"?

If you haven't seen this, take a few minutes and watch it, all of you. Funny , smart and hits the nail right on the head. Tim

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

 

[showcase 66]

I liked to draw when I was little. I think most kids do. But got bored quickly with that. When I was 9 I went with my dad to a friends of his house to look at some tools he was selling. We looked through his garage and he showed us a 24" wood lathe that he was selling. Said he didnt have the patience for it. I wanted to try it because I thought it would be fun. My dad and Roger both said no. I was to young. about 15 minutes later I went back into the garage and turned the lathe on grabbed one of the chisels and went to town. I was in there for about 10 minutes before I was caught. I looked at my dad and said we need to get this.

Roger ended up giving it to me on my 10th Birthday and I started making pens and handles for things. Was a lot of fun.

 

[JR's]

Funny , smart and hits the nail right on the head. Tim

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Thanks Tim,
it hit home for me.

JR

 

[round man]

Before I attended elementary school we were displaced by a hurricane in Louisiana and moved back to the Carolina's with little more than the shirts on our backs. This was way before FEMA was anything much more than an idea on the drawing table, as there wasn't any real significant help for those victims of disaster in the mid fifties. One of the few toys I got to play with that we could afford on the family farm were the pencils and paper my grandfather had to keep books with as he bought enough paper and pencils at harvest time to last the whole year till next harvest.Many the time I would pass my time at the kitchen table with a pencil and paper drawing my imaginary world to occupy myself. By the time I reached junior high school things had changed alot for the better and I got the chance to attend art classes at a local boys club in the neighborhood my dad had moved to with his new factory job at the local cigarette plant.One summer when I was 14 my dad made me go to work for a local sign painter to keep me off the streets and out of trouble unlike the other kids in our poor lower class neighborhood.
By the time I reached high school I was drawing pencil portraits that I was selling to friends and family and painting signs part time. In my next to last year of high school I was one of two hundred students in my state to be chosen to go to the Governors School for academically gifted and talented students and then from there with scholarships for art school at a state university after high school.

I guess you could say I was creative as a kid,...