Watercolors. Drawing with my Mummy

Watercolors

This is a story about a cheerful little boy named Tim. Tim lived in a big, big city together with his Papa, Mama, and little sister Sasha.

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,