Many years ago, Maurice Sendak was asked if he could share some of his favourite comments from readers that he’d got over the years. Apparently, he once received a charming letter from a young boy named Jim. In return Sendak drew a ‘wild thing’ and posted it off as a thank you.
A few days later, the artist received another letter, this time from the little boy’s mum. ‘Jim loved your card so much he ate it.’
Sendak recalls that as one of the highest compliments he ever received. The lad didn’t care that he’d received an original Maurice Sendak drawing. he saw it, loved it and ate it.
I want you to love your wild things so much that someone wants to eat them.
But how do we ever discover where the wild things really are? And does drawing or writing down your ‘things’ really make them delicious, or is it just a myth?
We’re offering you a chance to get your blank page and draw your ‘thing(s)’. The wilder the better. Think of this as the first stage of taming your wild bucking bronco of a dream.
Get your crayons and draw what you want in life. Just one rule, you must get excited! Work out specifically what your wild things are and get arty.
Draw them. Create them. Protect them. Cherish them. Be them. Work hard for them. Earn them.
Most of all, colour them in (outside of the lines)
As Maurice once wrote: ‘there should be a place where only the things you want to happen, happen.’ It’s time to create that place and let the wild rumpus start.
It might just pull you off the ground and let your inner child run wild.
Ready , steady, draw!
