Friday, September 08, 2006
drawing after school
On the left we have an Eastern Rosella seen in the school yard, and on the right a common pigeon (I don't think you need a wiki link to one of those - we call them flying rats) also seen in the school yard. D'Arcy drew them while he was waiting for me to finish talking to the teacher and the other mums. Then when we got home, he coloured them in. I told him that he was drawing from life - life drawing - and his take on that is "live drawing". After he'd done the colouring he insisted that we go to a nature reserve nearby so he could see more birds and draw them.
He got ready to go, which involved packing his bag with his notebook, pencil, water bottle, snack and hat. And then we were off. There are a couple of photos from the adventure on Flickr. We didn't get far before it was time to stop for a snack, and then time to stop to draw. He drew a dog we saw, and started to draw another - a border collie puppy who wouldn't stand still, when disaster struck! Yes, a broken pencil. So after a short tantrum it was deemed to be the end of the drawing excursion. The puppy's minder (it wasn't her puppy, she was looking after it) had another dog - an elderly Airdale called Bexley, who was pretty keen on D'Arcy. She told of being an art school student - studying life drawing and printmaking, and D was impressed that grownups could go to school. A short walk and we were home again. He coloured in the dog picture, which at this stage still involves heavy handed texta-work. While we were wout he also did a few studies of birds legs and feet.
I wonder if it's the left-handedness, or the boy-ness, or just the D'Arcy-ness that has him at the bottom of the artistic continuum in his class. Most of the girls at age 5/6 are doing amazing scenes with people and sky and flowers and colouring inside the lines. The boys are mostly into drawing aeroplanes and boats and stuff. Not my boy, though he drew a recognisable skull and crosbones on a pirate ship he'd made out of cardboard boxes the other day. I'm thrilled that he's interested in drawing at last, and I've been suitably impressed with his pics. I'm sure he'll get there in the end, just worrying like a mother I s'pose.
He got ready to go, which involved packing his bag with his notebook, pencil, water bottle, snack and hat. And then we were off. There are a couple of photos from the adventure on Flickr. We didn't get far before it was time to stop for a snack, and then time to stop to draw. He drew a dog we saw, and started to draw another - a border collie puppy who wouldn't stand still, when disaster struck! Yes, a broken pencil. So after a short tantrum it was deemed to be the end of the drawing excursion. The puppy's minder (it wasn't her puppy, she was looking after it) had another dog - an elderly Airdale called Bexley, who was pretty keen on D'Arcy. She told of being an art school student - studying life drawing and printmaking, and D was impressed that grownups could go to school. A short walk and we were home again. He coloured in the dog picture, which at this stage still involves heavy handed texta-work. While we were wout he also did a few studies of birds legs and feet.
I wonder if it's the left-handedness, or the boy-ness, or just the D'Arcy-ness that has him at the bottom of the artistic continuum in his class. Most of the girls at age 5/6 are doing amazing scenes with people and sky and flowers and colouring inside the lines. The boys are mostly into drawing aeroplanes and boats and stuff. Not my boy, though he drew a recognisable skull and crosbones on a pirate ship he'd made out of cardboard boxes the other day. I'm thrilled that he's interested in drawing at last, and I've been suitably impressed with his pics. I'm sure he'll get there in the end, just worrying like a mother I s'pose.
# posted by Mummy/Crit : 8:02 PM
