by Mark McKinney
My seven year old likes to draw, and has his own sketchbook and boxes of markers and crayons.
My four year old will draw on occasion, but doesn’t seem too interested for the most part – it’s not something he’ll ask to do. When he does draw, it’s usually just scribbling with different colors. He likes to be complimented on his scribbles, but I think that’s more about getting recognition for his efforts like his brother does.
Recently we all sat down together to do some drawing. I used to draw on a regular basis, it was a nice way to release pent-up emotions, and I had aspirations of being an artist. I filled countless notebooks with drawings and ideas for paintings. But in recent years my artist output has dwindled, so this was a somewhat rare occasion, but in the context of drawing with my kids, I thought it would be fun.
I should probably do this more often, as it yielded some interesting results. My seven year old was constantly looking over to see what I was drawing, and soaking it in and letting it fuel his imagination. My four year old? Well, he proceeded to grab random markers and scribble.
This doesn’t really bother me, as I’m not going to force him to do something structured, I just want him to enjoy himself and the experience of drawing. On this particular day, though, it seemed like he wasn’t even paying attention to his scribbles, his mind was elsewhere as his hands went through the motions. Not that this is bad either – Jackson Pollock was known as an “action painter,” whose concept of painting was that the way one painted was important along with the actual result of the “act” of painting. But at this point I decided to call him on his scribbles. I said “why don’t you draw some shapes, a square, a circle, or something like that?”
That one simple sentence had consequences that I never could have imagined. He proceeded to make a page full of squares and rectangles, in different sizes, in different colors, and he seemed to have a method for his composition. I complimented him on it, and told him it was really nice to see him draw something.
Well, it’s been a couple of weeks now since that day, and my four year old has taken a much more active interest in drawing – specifically, drawing squares. Every single drawing since that day has been squares … squares … and more squares! Even today, my seven year old decided to do some drawing, and came over to show me his page of … squares!
It made me think of Mondrian, the modern artist who became famous for his paintings which consisted mainly of squares. Perhaps his dad said years ago, “Piet, why do you scribble all the time, why don’t you make a shape, something like a square?” Who knows?
Mark McKinney is the director of www.artsology.com, a web site which aims to teach kids about the arts (visual art, music, literature and dance) through fun games and activities. Artsology hopes that enjoyment of these games will act as a springboard to further investigation of the arts and the cultural figures and ideas contained within the site.
My seven year old likes to draw, and has his own sketchbook and boxes of markers and crayons.
My four year old will draw on occasion, but doesn’t seem too interested for the most part – it’s not something he’ll ask to do. When he does draw, it’s usually just scribbling with different colors. He likes to be complimented on his scribbles, but I think that’s more about getting recognition for his efforts like his brother does.
Recently we all sat down together to do some drawing. I used to draw on a regular basis, it was a nice way to release pent-up emotions, and I had aspirations of being an artist. I filled countless notebooks with drawings and ideas for paintings. But in recent years my artist output has dwindled, so this was a somewhat rare occasion, but in the context of drawing with my kids, I thought it would be fun.
I should probably do this more often, as it yielded some interesting results. My seven year old was constantly looking over to see what I was drawing, and soaking it in and letting it fuel his imagination. My four year old? Well, he proceeded to grab random markers and scribble.
This doesn’t really bother me, as I’m not going to force him to do something structured, I just want him to enjoy himself and the experience of drawing. On this particular day, though, it seemed like he wasn’t even paying attention to his scribbles, his mind was elsewhere as his hands went through the motions. Not that this is bad either – Jackson Pollock was known as an “action painter,” whose concept of painting was that the way one painted was important along with the actual result of the “act” of painting. But at this point I decided to call him on his scribbles. I said “why don’t you draw some shapes, a square, a circle, or something like that?”
That one simple sentence had consequences that I never could have imagined. He proceeded to make a page full of squares and rectangles, in different sizes, in different colors, and he seemed to have a method for his composition. I complimented him on it, and told him it was really nice to see him draw something.
Well, it’s been a couple of weeks now since that day, and my four year old has taken a much more active interest in drawing – specifically, drawing squares. Every single drawing since that day has been squares … squares … and more squares! Even today, my seven year old decided to do some drawing, and came over to show me his page of … squares!
It made me think of Mondrian, the modern artist who became famous for his paintings which consisted mainly of squares. Perhaps his dad said years ago, “Piet, why do you scribble all the time, why don’t you make a shape, something like a square?” Who knows?
Mark McKinney is the director of www.artsology.com, a web site which aims to teach kids about the arts (visual art, music, literature and dance) through fun games and activities. Artsology hopes that enjoyment of these games will act as a springboard to further investigation of the arts and the cultural figures and ideas contained within the site.
