Terri L. French

Outside the Lines

When my two boys were little they only got plain manila paper, crayons and markers to draw with. No coloring books. They created their own skies — straight lines across the top of the page filled in with blue. Or sometimes monsters with jagged teeth and red laser-beam eyes. My older son loved to color, while his brother soon turned in his Crayolas for a ball and bat.

Once I rolled butcher paper down the hardwood hallway, allowing my young Picasso to scribble with wild abandon his fanciful panorama. Some of that scene invariably trailed onto the floor. His father was angry. I secretly loved that he took his artwork off the edge of the paper.

Now, he is a working artist. His paint often leaves the canvas and finds its way to his clothing, shoes, or brindles the fur of the pit bull at his feet.

trumpet vine
spilling over the chained link
fence