Childhood Art Project | michellejamesson

When I was pregnant I finally took the time to look through some boxes my dad had recently found and gave to me. Inside was a huge collection of my childhood art that my mom had saved. I hadn't seen any of the pieces since the day I made them.

My sweet and thoughtful mom lugged around this huge collection for years. And now it was my huge collection. I wondered for weeks what I'd do with it all. Lug it around too? Throw it away? Then I had an idea. Maybe I can make new art from my old art. After a ton of time lovingly and carefully cutting out the best of my doodles I had a pretty large assortment of cutout drawings to work with.

It was amazing timing to be reunited with my kid art. Being in my 30s and about to have a baby myself, the art brought back strong feelings of what it felt like being a kid. That sense of wonderment, imagination and innocent bliss. This, I decided would be the inspiration as I reworked my doodles into something for Ana's nursery walls.

Spent a lot of time working on these projects quietly with headphones during Ana's naps.

It took time and a lot of creative energy mixing doodles that were never on the same page and dreaming up new combinations but I enjoyed the entire process very much. This was my first reimagined piece.

I also used my original handwriting from elementary school for the letters making up the words on these pieces. Cut out each letter individually from vocabulary and spelling lists my mom had also saved. They just needed to be bolded with pen. This piece is called Believe, inspired by the flying pig I drew a long time ago.

"I'm runing on a butuful donkey." This was a writing exercise that had the accompanying image of me riding a donkey I placed in the center. I thought it was funny!

Find Beauty in Everything

This piece demonstrates my childhood cat obsession. Half of the art box was about cats! CAT. Pig. CAT. Turtle. Horse. Fox. Fish. CAT. Dog. KITTEN. Bird. Rabbit. KITTENS!

Half cats completed!

More evidence of cat obsession! These were all written separately from each other, but I thought they worked well as a poem.

Crazy Cat: Thes is my pet cat. My mom and dad bought a cat for me. My cat is pretty. My cat is wise. I liked my cat. A cat gos hiss. So my cat is crazy too. Witin and Illlosortr by Michelle