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Monday, October 25, 2010

Sculpture and Drawing

It isn't pretty when an adult BEGS a four year old.

I was under a deadline for a illustration AND I was also scheduled to care for my little friend all morning long. "Oh, god.......this isn't going to work...."

I gave her crayons and paper and told her i was going to be drawing too, and that until I was done, I could not talk to her.  

How realistic is that? The room got very quiet. Miracles of miracles I finished my job sooner than I thought and could give her my attention.

She showed me her drawings of things she's seen in my office. One drawing was of the relief sculpture, Oasis, from my series "the Nature of Water".

Oasis looks like this:

Her drawing of it looks like this:
My sketch for Oasis looks like this:
She nailed ever important aspect of the sculpture, the rock,  the ripples and the cracked earth border.
It was humbling and more than a little magical to understand how perceptive small folks are.

3 comments:

Theresa Cheek said...

Good observation Patrick! We are born so much smarter than we end up being...;) That child has an artist's mind!


Theresa

Karin Corbin said...

quote attributed to St. Francis Xavier “Give me the child until he is seven and I’ll give you the man”.

The younger you start them on the road of "seeing" and "creating" the better. We are all naturals but with many the switch simply never gets turned on.

patrickgracewood said...

It's actually hard for me to see her drawings become more typical for her age.- she's now in the phase of drawing what she knows rather than what she sees. Just thankful that she's still excited to be drawing....
and "SOMEHOW" the batteries keep dying in any electronic game she is given.