Are you thinking what I am thinking.....

I have had this post in the draft mode for quite  a few weeks now and finally everything came together today and am very excited to share it with you.Do you ever wonder that when you give a recipe to five different chefs, all the final dishes taste different? Or if you give each of them same ingredients to come up with an original dish,each of them is sure to come up with a different creation with a different name to boot.And that is why my dishes never taste as delicious as my mother's even though I follow her recipes.Try giving ten words to five different people and ask them to write  a sentence.Chances are you will get five different sentences.That is how unique we are and that is what makes the world interesting.Last month while visiting my fifth grader's classroom  I came across this wall exhibit in his classroom called "Tall Ships"which was a quilt of  pictures made by  the kids.

This was a directed drawing activity where all the kids followed the same directions to draw ships resembling those in 1800s in preparation to their visit to  Star of India.They had been listening to their teacher read to them  True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle and had a pretty good idea how these ships would look like. The remarkable fact about these drawings is that they were drawn straight with a Sharpie. No tracing, just the first and only attempt with  a permanent marker.Imagine the kids' trepidation on getting the news that they were to draw with a Sharpie.No erasers, no do overs.But their wonderful teacher assured them that there are no mistakes in art and their pieces will be a reflection of their own individual artistic vision.The intent was to give them  a confidence in themselves as you know when  drawing with a permanent marker they could not go back and erase their mistakes as they would have been able to, had they drawn with a pencil. Kudos to the children for trying it.I know I would be intimidated.

If you look closely you will be amazed to see how unique each piece is even after followng the same directions.Of course a cursory glance  does render them similar but upon looking closely you will be able to see the uniqueness in each piece, in each flourish of the marker and the hues of the colors used to paint the drawings.Some ships are on calm seas while others seem to be battling stormy oceans. For some sailors the sun is still rising while  for some it has already set.I can keep going but I would love to have the readers share their views. Here are some close ups of randomly selected drawings.Please leave  a comment below to share the little differences that you notice.