LITMIR.BIZ

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      One evening Papa was sitting at the table, reading the newspaper. This was unusual, because he usually read the news on his cell phone. Tim was sitting near Papa, painting with his wonderful watercolors, which Grandma had given him the day before.

      The evening was warm and pleasant. Then, all at once, a butterfly flew through the open window into the living room.

      It wasn’t that Tim had never seen a butterfly before. On the contrary, he had seen lots of them—all different kinds. But that day he suddenly felt a desire to catch it and look at it more closely so he could paint it.

      The butterfly flew about the room, and Tim ran after it, jumping and laughing:

      "A butterfly! A beautiful, beautiful butterfly!”

      Papa put down his newspaper and smiled, watching the unexpected excitement.

      He was just about to go and help Tim, who was getting tired from running about, when the butterfly flew toward the table near Papa's newspaper and Tim's new watercolors, then suddenly flitted upward. The next second Tim had jumped up onto the chair, then onto the table, then leaped over both the table and his father. And everything might have ended well if Tim hadn’t knocked over his wonderful watercolors.

      Colored water went flying all over the room. It splattered onto the table and chairs, the sofa and the wall, the floor, and even some of the toys.

      While Papa stood there dazed, assessing the situation, Tim picked up the paints and newspaper from the floor and stared. The boring black-and-white newspaper with its boring black-and-white pictures was now awash with color. The paint had spilled all over the newspaper, the colors mixing together. And the newspaper seemed to come alive. It had become bright and cheerful, its boring pictures now funny and unusual.

      Tim grabbed his paints, took a black-and-white notebook with pencil drawings from the bookshelf, and poured the remaining colored water directly onto the boring pages. And that is how these color tales began: Tim's Color Tales.

      The First Tale: Yellow and Green

      “I don’t know what to paint,” Tim mumbled, laying his head on the white sheet of paper.

      “Don’t say that,” Mama smiled. “You’ll scare away all the ideas.” She came over and sat down beside him.

      “Would you like to paint a backward picture?”

      “What’s a backward picture?”

      “Well, first we write what it is, and then we paint it.”

      “Wow! Will you write what it is for me? What will we write?”

      “Do you want to paint something pretty or something ugly?”

      “Something pretty,” Tim declared without hesitation.

      “Perfect! A pretty green… hmm.” For some reason Mama chose the color green for him. “Or maybe a pretty green…”

      “Green, Mama?!” Tim laughed, so loudly that little Sasha began to smile and gurgle, as though joining Tim in his unrestrained merriment. “Mama, where have you ever seen something pretty and green?” Tim gasped through his laughter.

      “Whyever not?” Mama objected.

      “A frog is green, but it’s ugly. A crocodile is ugly, too. You’re pretty, Mama, but you’re not green.”

      “Uh-oh; now you’ve hurt the frog’s and crocodile’s feelings,” said Mama. Then she wrote, Green and pretty.

      “Let’s paint a pretty frog and a pretty crocodile.”

      “You can’t paint something ugly as if it were pretty.” Tim turned away.

      “No? Just try it! Paint a nice frog and crocodile, with happy eyes and warm smiles!”

      “Warm smiles?” Tim echoed, staring off into space.

      “Exactly! Warm smiles,” Mama repeated. Then, with a mysterious wink at Tim, she left the table.

      “Mama, look! Look, Mama, look!” Tim ran down the hall, waving a big sheet of paper. On it were a beautiful green frog and a lovely green crocodile. The frog was standing on its hind legs with a wide grin. It was wearing a yellow dress and a big yellow hat.

      The crocodile also had a yellow sundress and a hat, but it was holding the hat in its hand. One eye was closed. The crocodile appeared to be trying to wink at them.

      “Very pretty!” Mama said. “But why are they dressed in yellow?”

      “Because yellow is like the sun, and the sun is warm.”

      “All right. But why are they wearing dresses?”

      “Because it’s a lady crocodile and a lady frog!”

      “So pretty creatures wear dresses, and yellow keeps them warm?”

      “YES!” Tim answered emphatically.

      Mama laughed merrily, but said nothing, and she stroked Tim’s head.

      The Second Tale: Blue

      “I’m bored.”

      “I’m booorrreeedddd…”

      “Mamaaaa!” Tim whined, tugging at his mother’s sleeve.

      “All right, let's paint a picture,” said his mother, finally setting aside what she had been doing.

      “Hooray!” Tim went jumping through the room toward the cupboard to get his brand new watercolors.

      In a moment Tim had arranged everything in front of him: paints, brushes, a glass of water, and a big white sheet of paper. But then suddenly he grew sad again.

      “I don't know what to draw.”

      “Let's draw the ocean!” Mama suggested.

      “That’s borriiing.” “Tim laid his head on the white sheet of paper, dipped his brush into the glass of water, and began to stir the water, making a whirlpool.

      “Then let's draw white-capped waves, like wooly sheep!”

      “Waves like sheep? That’s boring toooo.” Tim continued making a whirlpool in his glass. At the moment this interested him more than what to draw. The whirlpool picked up speed and was on the verge of jumping out of the glass.

      “Well, you could paint a sheep hugging the ocean,” Mama persisted.

      “How? The ocean is too biiiiig!”

      “Really? Hm… You're probably right. What if you paint the ocean hugging a sheep?"

      “Wouldn’t the sheep drown?" Tim asked, surprised at his mother's suggestion.

      “You can imagine that they are best friends. The ocean wouldn’t want his friend to drown.”

      And so Tim painted the ocean hugging a sheep.

      What about you? Can you draw the ocean hugging a sheep?

      The Third Tale: Red

      “Mama, my inspiration is gone!”

      “What terrible news,” said Mama, sitting down next to Tim. “Then we'll just have to go look for it! Let's pick a color at random.”

      “What does ‘at random’ mean?”

      “It means ‘without thinking’ or ‘without looking,’” said Mama. She took out a whole set of paints, each in its own jar with a lid.

      Tim turned away, covered his eyes with one hand, and picked up a jar of paint with the other.

      “RED!” Tim yelled delightedly when he opened his eyes.

      “Are you so happy because you already know what you're going to paint?”

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