As we continue our journey into the world of Positive Playfullness, it's clear that the people we surround ourselves with play a pivotal role in shaping our experiences and overall well-being.

Let's explore the importance of fostering connections with playful individuals with some practical tips for building a supportive community that embraces the joy of Positive Playfullness:

• Seek out playful friends — Identify friends, family members, or co-workers who embody the spirit of Positive Playfullness and make an effort to spend more time with them. These individuals can inspire and motivate you to embrace playfulness in your daily life.
• Join playful groups or clubs — Engage in local groups or clubs focused on fun and playful activities, such as improv classes, recreational sports teams, or board game meetups. These social opportunities can help you connect with like-minded individuals who value the importance of play.
• Attend playful events — Be on the lookout for events that promote playfulness, such as street fairs, art festivals, or themed parties. These events can serve as fertile ground for cultivating new friendships with playful people.
• Participate in volunteer work — Engage in volunteer opportunities centered around playful activities, such as working with children, participating in community cleanups, or assisting at local events. These experiences can help you build connections with individuals who share your passion for playfulness and community involvement.

The more-the-merrier tips:

• Create playful traditions — Establish playful traditions with your friends or family, such as a weekly game night, a monthly nature walk, or a seasonal arts and crafts day. These traditions can strengthen bonds with your loved ones while providing consistent opportunities for play.
• Encourage playfulness in others — Be a role model for Positive Playfullness by sharing your playful experiences, offering encouragement, and promoting a playful mindset.
• Embrace vulnerability — Cultivate authentic connections by sharing your experiences, struggles, and triumphs with your playful community. This vulnerability can create a safe space for others to open up and deepen your relationships.
• Seek out playfulness in unexpected places — Be open to discovering playful individuals in unexpected places, such as the workplace, public transportation, or online forums. These unconventional connections can enrich your life and make your day.

By surrounding yourself with playful people and fostering a supportive community, you'll create a network of individuals who share your passion for joy and playfulness. As your community grows and strengthens, you'll continue to experience the transformative power of Positive Playfullness and its profound impact on your overall well-being.

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What I Learned at Summer Art Camp

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I believe the best teachers have at least one quality in common: openness to experience. Yes, we are open to the dynamic unfolding ofwhat is which naturally occurs in our teaching environments, including being open to learning from our students, because everyone has the potential to teach us. This time, for me, it was from a group of highly-energized 6 to 9-year-old's at a week-long summer art camp.

One entire day at camp was devoted to drawing still-life. In preparation, Dorothy, the master art teacher, went shopping for a variety of pieces of interesting-shaped produce the night before: lettuce, celery, eggplant, oranges, grapefruit, apples, and carefully laid them all out on the studio table before the little artists arrived. Then, each child was invited to choose three different fruits and vegetables to draw in their own working space.

For the next two hours the art studio was buzzing with creativity as a tossed salad of fruit and vegetables materialized onto white drawing paper. The kids were having fun and struck me as a complete contrast that an art class full of children have with a class of adults. Here's a few things I learned.

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Secret 1: Why Pencils Have Erasers

As adults, we often get anxious when faced with a blank canvas. Making the first mark and allowing ourselves to "mess up" the paper is akin to having teeth pulled at the dentist. Sometimes we get so overwhelmed with the idea that we must be perfect in our art that we hold back expressing ourselves imperfectly and secretly spend our days yearning to be artists, foregoing opportunities to simply practice being artists.

What can children teach us in this regard? Plenty. First, kids have no problem messing up paper. Kids' drawings are often accentuated with smears and smudges and of erased lines that you can still see after the fact or that dig rivers into the paper. Their art falls on the floor, gets stepped on or torn, and no matter, they still proudly present us with wonderful works of creative expression, of imaginative stories with charming characteristics that us adults would never forgive ourselves for.

One of the best-kept secrets kids have for dealing with their blank-page anxiety is the sharpening-the-pencil diversion. They'll get up and head straight for the pencil sharpener, knowing that its buzzing sound is really creative magic being zapped into the pencil point. Do you notice that when the point is just so they'll dive right in to their work? They might sharpen their pencils a few times in one sitting, but in the end, look around the table top when they're finished drawing. The pile of pencil erasures alone will let you in on another secret: Kids know why pencils have erasers and embrace it as the most perfect drawing tool in the world. The eraser tells them they have all the chances they want to get it right. Don't like that line? Try again.

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Secret 2: You Can Eat the Still-Life

Still-life models are fun for awhile, but drawing from the imagination makes youthful creativity buzz with glee. When the kids spent enough time in the bounds of still life drawing and were released from their vegetable subjects to draw cartoony things and other wonders straight from their imaginations, three-legged sharks with machete's cut right through the quiet fruit and vegetables in a dish and googly-eyed characters swimming in pools of blue wavy water filled the drawing paper right up to its edges. Disciplined tension was turned inside out and on its head.

And finally, when young artists get hungry they have no qualms about eating the edible still-life after it's been captured on paper. With my own two eyes I watched them attack and devour not only the apples and oranges, but the grapefruit and celery too. I think this was their practical solution to making the still life go away.

Crunch, crunch, crunch…

"Did you wash that first?" I asked, parently.

"Wash what?" was the crunching, munching response with the happiest grin you'll ever see.

Wide-eyed and in disbelief that the celery too, was eaten, I concluded that the art studio magically turns green vegetables and sour fruit into candy. And then I remembered that with energized kids and a flourishing imagination, everything is possible.

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There's nothing as magic as a freshly-sharpened pencil to an 8-year-old facing the blank "paper canvas." Once the pencil's sharpened, you'll quickly notice a sudden burst of energy in the child as they squiggle and squaggle graphite doodles all over their paper.

Don't believe me? Next time you have the opportunity to watch a kidling beeline from the pencil sharpener back to their desk, notice their renewed interest in their work. And if they return to the sharpener for a second or forth time — don't stop them. Creative genius is at work!

I have a theory about why this happens. About why the pencil sharpener infuses children with more creative juice.

This is not a simple case of a dulled pencil tip, I assure you, it's about so much more. No, I haven't been spending too much time around the Sanford Mr. Sketch fruity-scented markers — just follow me through the calculations below. I promise you, it will be worth my while.

Here's my convoluted theory:

I think the pencil sharpener really peels away the secret "creativity block" embedded within the pencil's paint (think sun-block). Yes, the undetectable creativity block molecules that pencil manufacturer's conspired to make as an additive to the yellow, red, blue, white, and green chewy-friendly paint that bonds to the pencil's wood. Why? Because creativity block promotes an excessive use of the pink eraser at the pencil's top.

Mmm hmm. That's right. See, when a child is creatively blocked, they do a lot of starting-and-stopping with their drawings. Sooner or later the clean white paper gets marred with miscalculated lines and mistakes and the child is all to eager to erase them away.(Next time notice all the erasures surrounding a child's drawing. I know what I'm talking about!)

For you skeptics, here's my mathematical deducing of this theory in pencil equations. Follow my logic, please:

Boy, I wish I was selling pencils.

Think that's far-fetched? Just wait until you hear my theory about why the #2 pencil is always #1 in sales. ✐

Copyright ©2007-2025 Chris Dunmire. All rights reserved.

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