Author: Tajrid Islam Ninad – Bangladesh – PROMPT! Cohort #1

You know those moments that just stick with you? Like when you hear a song that hits you right in the feels, or you see something so beautiful it actually makes your chest hurt a little? Yeah. I had one of those in art class last week, and I can’t stop thinking about it.

So there I was, staring at this stupid fruit bowl. Mr. Akbar – he’s my art teacher, and honestly, he’s kind of a mess in the best way possible – he always has paint on his clothes, his glasses, sometimes even in his hair. Last Thursday, he had this blue streak on his elbow that looked like a tiny Smurf had sacrificed itself there.

Anyway, I was trying to draw this apple, and man. It was bad. Like, really bad. It looked less like an apple and more like something you’d find at the bottom of your backpack after forgetting about it for a month. My banana wasn’t much better – all crooked and weird, like it had been through some stuff.

I was this close to just balling up the paper and calling it a day when Mr. Akbar wandered over. He looked at my drawing, then at me, and said this thing that’s been living in my brain ever since: “You know what? Good art isn’t about making things look perfect. It’s about making people feel something when they look at it.”

I just blinked at him. Maya, who sits next to me, actually kicked my foot under the table because I guess I had that “deer in headlights” look. Part of me was trying to process what he meant, and part of me was still wondering how the heck he got blue paint on his elbow.

But that idea? It’s been following me around like a lost puppy ever since.

Like yesterday in science class, when we were learning about cloud formations. Instead of taking notes, I started doodling in the margins of my notebook – what would sadness look like as a cloud? I drew this heavy, dark gray cloud with little raindrop tears. Happiness? That one was easy – one of those fluffy cotton ball clouds with sunshine peeking through the edges.

Then after school, I was walking home and saw this insane sunset. I’m talking orange, pink, purple – the whole rainbow was putting on a show. And it gave me that feeling, you know? The one where you’re listening to an amazing song and you can’t decide whether to dance around your room or just sit there and feel all the feelings. Mr. Akbar’s words popped right back into my head.

Where It All Starts

So I’ve been paying attention lately. Like, really paying attention. Have you ever actually watched rain on a window? I’m not talking about just noticing it’s raining – I mean really watching how the droplets race each other down the glass, how they merge and split apart, how they make the whole world outside look like it’s underwater?

Or shadows – they’re not just gray, you know. If you really look, like squint-your-eyes-and-lean-in close look, shadows have all these secret colors hiding in them. Blues and purples and sometimes even greens.

I was telling my mom about this while we were making pancakes on Saturday morning, and I got so excited explaining it that I almost burned one. She got that look she gets when she’s trying not to seem too proud, and she pulled out this art book she has. She showed me “The Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh, and at first I was like, “Okay, cool painting of some stars.” But then she told me he wrote to his brother about how he would dream about his paintings before he painted them. And suddenly it clicked – those swirly, crazy stars aren’t what stars actually look like. They’re what stars feel like in dreams. Mind. Officially. Blown.

Then there’s Picasso. He said something about imagination being real, which I always thought was just one of those things people say to sound deep. But then I was walking to school yesterday, cutting through the playground like I always do, and it hit me – everything around me started as someone’s idea. The swings, the slide, the whole school building – someone imagined it first. That’s pretty wild to think about when you’re just trying to remember if you finished your homework.

The Beauty of Getting It Wrong

Here’s what I’m slowly figuring out: art doesn’t have to be perfect. Like, at all. Sometimes when I’m stressed about a test or friend drama or that awkward thing I said three days ago that still makes me want to hide under my bed, I just grab whatever’s nearby – markers, crayons, colored pencils, whatever – and just go to town on some paper. No plan, no “this has to look like something specific,” just making marks and seeing what happens.

And you know what? It helps. It’s like giving all those messy, complicated feelings somewhere to go besides bouncing around inside my head.

I used to get so mad when my drawings didn’t come out right. Like that time I tried to draw my dog Biscuit for what felt like the hundredth time, and he still looked like a fuzzy potato with legs. I’d get so frustrated I’d crumple the paper into a tight little ball and maybe throw it across the room (sorry, Mom).

But then we learned about artists like Picasso, who would draw faces from, like, five different angles all at once. And I realized – he wasn’t trying to make things look “right.” He was trying to show how things feel from different sides, all at the same time.

The Secret Language We All Speak

The coolest thing I’ve realized recently? Art is like this secret code that everyone understands, even if they speak different languages. Like, a kid in Japan could look at an African mask and get the same feeling we do, even if they’ve never been to Africa. Someone in Brazil could look at Michelangelo’s painting on the Sistine Chapel ceiling and feel inspired, even if they don’t know any Italian words besides “pizza” and “ciao.”

Artists use colors and shapes the way we use words when we’re texting our friends:

• Bright, sunny yellow? That’s the feeling you get when summer vacation finally starts
• Deep, dark blue? That quiet, peaceful feeling when you’re the only one awake early in the morning
• Jagged, sharp lines? All the stress and anxiety before a big test
• Soft, curvy lines? That comfortable, easy silence you have with your best friend when you don’t need to talk

My older sister had to do this big report on Friday Kahlo for school, and now I’m kind of obsessed with her. She went through so much pain in her life, but instead of pretending it wasn’t there or hiding it, she put it right there in her paintings for everyone to see. There’s this one painting where she drew herself crying, with her actual heart outside her body. It sounds kind of intense and weird, but it’s also really beautiful because it’s so honest. It’s like she’s saying, “This is me. All of me. Even the parts that hurt.”

Why Your Story Actually Matters

My little brother is the one who really made me get it, though. He’s six, and he draws our family with these giant heads and stick bodies, but he always gets something exactly right. Like how Dad’s glasses are always crooked because he’s constantly fixing things around the house, or how our dog’s tongue always hangs out to one side when he’s tired. It’s not “perfect” by any means, but it’s so us. It’s more “us” than any photograph could ever be.

That’s when it really clicked for me – your story matters. The boring Tuesday when nothing much happened except you noticed how the light came through the blinds in a certain way? That time you finally beat that impossible level in your favorite video game? That song that gives you chills every single time you hear the first few notes? All of that is fuel for your art. It’s what makes your art different from anyone else’s in the whole world.

I may or may not have been watching a J.K. Rowling spoke on YouTube instead of doing my math homework the other day (please don’t tell my mom), and she said something about imagination being what makes us human and lets us create everything from entire wizarding worlds to little doodles in notebook margins. And you know what? She’s not wrong.

Okay, Your Turn

So I started this messy, beat-up notebook that I call my “Weird and Wonderful Journal.” The cover’s kind of stained from when I spilled apple juice on it, but I try to write down or draw at least one cool thing I notice every day. Like yesterday, I saw this pigeon walking around like it had very important business to attend to and was running late. Or the way the light makes these rainbow patterns on the floor when the sun hits my water bottle during the third period.

Here’s what I’m trying to do this week:

1. Notice one weird or wonderful thing each day – like how the cafeteria spaghetti sometimes looks like modern art, or how Mr. Jenkins always taps his foot during morning announcements
2. Watch some art videos instead of just scrolling through TikTok – there are some seriously amazing street artists out there who turn whole buildings into incredible paintings
3. Make something – anything – even if it’s just drawing mustaches on people in magazines or arranging your snacks to look like a funny face before you eat them

The best part about all of this? There’s no finish line. This sculptor named Henry Moore said the secret to life is finding something you can never completely finish. Art is totally like that – there’s always more to discover, more to try, more feelings to understand and put into colors and shapes.

So maybe my lumpy, weird-looking apple wasn’t actually a failure. Maybe it was exactly how I felt about drawing fruit on a random Tuesday morning – a little bored, kind of frustrated, but still trying anyway. And maybe that’s actually a pretty honest thing to put on paper.

Your art journey is waiting for you – and the crazy part is, you’re probably already on it and just didn’t realize it. What magic will you notice today? What completely ordinary thing will you see in your own extraordinary way?

Just another kid who’s still figuring it out along with you.