Quick Pic: Girl Running With Wet Canvas (Wet Paint)

Big Idea
Norman Rockwell’s pictures always tell a story.
The details in this image tell a story about a young woman fully engaged in her art making. We get the sense she is spending time doing something she loves to do.
Notice and Wonder
She leans forward, pencil between her teeth and with her feet barely touching the ground.
She carries a canvas, paintbox, a wet palette of paint, a foldable easel, and lots of brushes. Her paintbox is hastily closed with what looks like a rag popping out. She is moving so quickly that her hat has come off!
Look at the sky. Might she be trying to outrun a storm?
Is it possible that the weather was lovely when she began to paint, she was fully absorbed in her work, and then it suddently began to rain?
Fun Facts
This is a subject that Norman Rockwell would have been very familiar with, because as a young man, he attended art school at the Art Students League in New York, where he studied painting, drawing, and illustration.
Art was his true love and passion throughout his life, and he continued to work at it and perfect his skills for about seventy years.
Norman Rockwell loved to paint but he did not paint out of doors very often. He generally worked in his studio from sketches and photographs of his models. When he traveled for pleasure or business, he often brought along a paint box just like the one you see here, and that allowed him to continue making art no matter where he was. It was stuffed with oil paints, charcoal, rags, a palette, and other supplies.
What you can do!
Notice what you are doing and who you are with when you feel most alive and fully engaged. This image celebrates how wonderful it feels to be fully engaged, and it invites us to reflect on our own interests and those of the people in our class, community, family. How can we best support each other to make time and space for pursuing our greatest interests?