“Here, look,” the small boy said, beaming at his creation.

The old t-shirt that he was wearing as a smock had protected his clothes, but even it couldn’t stop the boy from getting paint on himself. His fingers were naturally all different colors, but his arms and even his cheeks were also brightly painted in greens, oranges, reds, yellows.

His mother smiled down on it. “Beautiful,” she said. “Tell me about it.”

The boy nodded again, smiled wider. “It’s our house. See, there’s the door.” He pointed to one orange splatter in the puddle of green at the center. “And the windows. And there’s you in the front yard.”

“I look very pretty,” his mom said politely at the red spot that was designated to be her. “You did a good job.”

She couldn’t actually see any likeness between her and the dab of paint there, but it didn’t particularly matter.

“I am going to put it on the fridge, you go to the bathroom to get ready for a bath.”

With that the artist ran off, leaving his mother smiling.