Student does a watercolor with much more detail than I was expecting

I teach a free art class twice a week for mostly children. We are open to all ages but the adults that turn up quickly start to feel embarrassed that they are in a room with a bunch of kids 8-14 years old and will normally take off. It's pretty funny actually but there is also an adult only class that is also free but I do not teach that one.

Many of the parents use this as free babysitting but as long as their kids are well-behaved I don't mind. I'm just happy to get kids' heads out of their tablets and phones for an hour as we explore offline stuff like making art!

We focus mostly on basics and I am constantly telling the kids that there is no right or wrong way of doing art and we celebrate our "mistakes" and embrace them as our own style. Landscapes are likely the easiest for students to grasp so we do a lot of that. Recently a student has seriously progressed well beyond what I expected and I was so impressed that I asked if it would be ok if I put it online for him.

I want you to keep in mind that this child is only 9 years old and while I see a lot of my own tutelage in this pic in that he didn't focus on minute details too much the level of color clarity in this picture is just wonderful to me.

Had I not seen it with my own eyes I would normally presume that this was an AI image or something made on a computer but no, this was all pencil, then felt-tip pen and watercolors. I was particularly impressed with the shadowing and it warms my heart when the kids remember something that we talked about in class. I tell them to put an eraser at some place above their piece of paper and consider it to be the sun and then make shadows accordingly. Most of them are able to grasp this concept pretty easily and this child did a magnificent job of that.

I am especially impressed with this because while the shadows of the chimneys would be quite easy, the shadow of another entire structure - the building in this case - takes great vision to imagine what it would be like.

The thing that most impresses me about students like this one is that they are not required to do this at all. He simply took it upon himself to do this at home in his free time and according to his parents, he spends a lot of time drawing and painting instead of playing videogames or watching TV. I think that youth today spend way too much time messing about on electronic devices so I consider every minute that I can convince them to do something else with their hands a serious win.

Getting involved in art is not expensive or even terribly difficult. While we provide the material in my classes for free, people can get a full set of materials at their own house for less than $20.

There is no wrong way to make art - that is the major point here and I believe that once someone embraces this concept that they can easily get involved and enjoy the wonders of artistry!