J is very creative.
He can make a picture from a variety of substances, some made for drawing, some not.
Apart from the usual pen and pencil drawings on paper (and painted walls) he is almost, to the point, fanatical about his magnetic drawer. In total we have three of these drawers in the house, and I replace them every year, as they become quite worn on their main face and can also become lumpy underneath where the eraser bar has to move.
Even though these drawers are the same make and colour, he knows which one is his favourite. He will seek it out if I dare to swap them round, and will ask "drawone drawone" until he either finds it or I produce it (please don't think I hide it for fun, it is usually when I am cleaning his room that it goes into a tidy area)
Liquids such as shampoo and shower gel also get the J artist treatment. He will finger swirl them around on the television screen, mirrors, walls, and against shiny surfaces such as the oven heat protector door.
He will take his cup of milk to the garden, proceed to throw it onto the patio the milk not the cup) and then walk through it making dragging patterns and foot prints.
One day I would love to take him to an artist studio where he can have access to a large floor piece of canvas and a mix of paints and art textures. I am sure he would be in his element with the mixing, wiping, spreading, pouring and splattering of the paints against the fabric.
He was even creative with his own body fluids - blood. When he was going through his worst phase of head banging so far, he made his forehead open into a wound, and when it had scabbed up overnight he would then bang his head against the wall until it opened up again, and then press his wound against the walls, making patterns.
I could talk about his other body productions and the uses he has found for them, but I think you get the gist and can draw your own imaginative conclusions from it.
Suffice to say, and to reassure, I never allow him to continue with these creative products, and everything is cleaned and sanitised.
J may not have the artistic skills of some reverred autistic people, who recreate intricate architect type drawings of buildings, but to see him absorbed and happy when he is at his art work, I think he has his own unique talent, and it is one I love to display (minus the blood and other ones).
