Amos’s artwork is colorful, thoughtful—sometimes spontaneous and sometimes planned. On a January snow day, Amos made a colorful abstract of our fireplace and mantle, using his dad’s oil pastels. This month, he opted to make 28 handmade, mixed media (newspaper, construction paper, index cards, glitter glue, crayons and markers) valentines for his classmates and teachers instead of buying store bought cards or signing candy packages.

Amos has many interests. He loves the natural world, especially animals. Two other passions are fishing and playing basketball. Many of his drawings reflect these activities. For the 100th day of school, Amos turned the numeral 100 into a picture. He drew a beach scene, and turned the zeros into inner tubes, with people floating in them in the ocean. (Amos loves Jimmy Buffett music. He dressed up as JB last Halloween.) Amos always writes, “I love you Mom and Dad.” on his drawings at school.

Amos is fortunate to have many creatives in his family. He was introduced to various mediums from a young age. However, his favorite art form is drawing. He loves nothing more than a plain piece of paper and drawing pencils, charcoal, oil pastels, or crayons—and then sharing his work with others.