For some, Easter is a religious celebration. For others, Easter is an excuse to load up on chocolate Easter eggs.
For me, the past few Easters have been about family, in particular, my granddaughters, who live on the other side of the planet, in the USA.
We visit once a year during their summer holidays, but how do we connect with them during the rest of the year? I would like to share one of the ways.
One year, our daughter shared that they joined and paid for an Easter event where the children went around hunting for Easter eggs. And they had great fun. That gave me an idea.
Drawing on ideas
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I started drawing Easter eggs, and put them among fruits, and their Easter egg hunt was to look for the eggs. I enjoyed thinking of them as I developed the idea and drew on the eggs.
It was with great joy that I watched them on Easter morning, doing their Easter egg hunt on WhatsApp video. We all had fun, and my wife looked at me with a twinkle in her eye, and said, “Well done!”
The standard has been set. For the next year, I drew our 3-tier family, with grandparents, parents and the grandchildren, and the Easter bunny. That did not go down very well, because they asked why the other extended family members were not included.
The following year, there were superhero movies which everyone was watching. So I ventured into the realm of masked avengers to draw their faces on eggs.
Batman seemed easy with a mask and mouth. No need to draw the face. Add the batman logo. No need to draw the body. Seemed easy enough.
Next was Spiderman, also no need to draw the face. Then came Ironman. One superhero led to another, and I had a whole team of them. And I had to include Wonder Woman.
Being Easter, I also included Jesus, a different superhero. It was a hit with the grandchildren.
Disney becomes (Easter) egg-citing
That summer, I was watching a few animated Disney movies with them. Mulan, Aladdin, Frozen, My Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, etc, and the girls would buy the costumes and wear them to parties.
So, the next year’s Easter egg theme was Disney Princesses. Very ambitious, very difficult, as each princess was identified by the hair style and colour, and the dress style and colour, even though the face was almost the same. We have to bear in mind that the children would spot straightaway a wrong colour or style.
This was a very difficult project, but nice to be drawing all those pretty princesses. The project also taught me to be more attentive to hair styles, colours, dresses and accessories, to help me connect more with our granddaughters when we visit them.
This year, I was reflecting on some of the shows I had been watching with them. We would sit and laugh, and talk about our favourite characters.
The few that stood out were Hei Hei the chicken in Moana, Po from Kung Fu Panda, Poppy from Trolls, and Red from The Angry Birds Movie. That was the theme for this year.
It brought out the child in me drawing these cartoon characters and reflecting on their roles in the movies, and laughing and enjoying watching the shows with the girls.
These were so well received that our little granddaughter did one of me (with bulging muscles) and my wife!!
The Easter egg activity year after year not only gave me an additional hobby, it has helped bring me closer to my granddaughters.
I could only paint the Easter eggs by paying close attention to their current passions, and my granddaughters reciprocate by continually sharing their interests with me.
Some Easter egg drawing tips:
- Use white eggs. The colours do not come out well on brown eggs, and I have no idea how to paint white for the eyes, etc.
- The stand is the centre core of a toilet roll. Again it has to be white for the colours to stand out. This is the difficult part, finding toilet paper with a white centre core. I even had to resort to using the centre core of kitchen towels, which is bigger in diameter, and the egg went right through! I then had to slit it lengthwise, and duct taped it to the required diameter. (Note: Masking tape and scotch tape are not strong enough).
- A set of Sharpie permanent markers.
- Google: Search for “Draw ……”
Try it. I was never good at art. I always got “D” in primary school. But trying to connect with our grandchildren is the motivation.
Thinking of them and what they would like, what characters they can identify with, stirs up your creativity, overcoming your shortcomings (not being artistic) and spending time thinking and doing.
The last 3 Easter egg activities took about 2 months each, off and on. It was wonderful thinking of them halfway around the world.
