More Than an Art Lesson

My kids are both artists. Son has already sold a portrait in colored pencil. Daughter spends about half her waking hours drawing little people and creatures and making up stories about them. I'm not an artist. As the old saying goes, I can't even draw water. Words are my art form and I use them the way my kids use shapes and lines. However, I'm a great audience and enthusiastic supporter of their art.

That's how we all wound up at an art class in an old building over a craft shop this week. Son was sitting in on the class to see if it was advanced enough for him. Daughter was there to see if it was too advanced for her. I was there to lend support - moral or otherwise - if either of them needed it. Daughter did.

We'd no more than sat down when the instructor introduced herself, whipped some paper and pencils down in front of everyone, taped a piece of paper to her easel and proceeded to draw a face. First, she drew a vertical line through the middle of the paper. Then she drew four horizontal lines across the vertical line at regular intervals. By the time she started to draw two ovals for eyes, Daughter was frustrated, red-faced and lost and we had answered the "is it too advanced" question. She pushed her paper away and said, "I'm not doing this."

However, both kids had agreed to stay for the whole class when they asked me if they could try this class, so I moved over next to her and pushed her paper back in front of her. "You can do just your best," I said, "It doesn't have to be perfect."

But for Daughter, it does have to be perfect, which is why she erases until there are holes in the paper sometimes.

"I'm not doing it," she said again, "It's too hard and I can't do it like the other kids."

Since the other kids were all at least two years older than her, that wasn't surprising.

"Just do your best to follow the directions," I said, "I'll help you."

Her look could have curdled milk.

"Mom, you're a horrible artist. I have to help you draw. Please don't embarrass me. Let's just leave."

I wasn't leaving. The teacher, Kate, took pity on us at that point and came over and helped Daughter draw the lines. Daughter cooperated, albeit with bad grace, and Kate told her that the class wasn't really for beginning artists.

"I'm not a beginner," Daughter said, "I've been drawing for years. I just don't draw your way."

"Well," Kate said, "If you want to get better at art, you might want to try to follow this method of drawing a face. Even great artists have to learn the basics."

Daughter bent her head over her paper, but I could see a mulish glint in her eye and knew that she wasn't buying this line of reasoning. Reasoning isn't something she's keen on anyway. Like a lot of very creative, sensitive little girls, she operates on feeling and impulse much more than on reason. I smiled at her, encouragingly, as Kate went back to the easel and continued the lesson.

Daughter did stay for the whole lesson, but somewhere around the nose, she thumped her hand on the table and turned her paper over. As Son and the other four kids chewed their lips, frowned in concentration and tried earnestly to reproduce the face the teacher was drawing, Daughter doodled. At first, her face was drawn into an angry scowl. She huffed a few times, sighed and tapped her feet. But gradually, as her paper filled with little creatures and girls and words, her face relaxed. By the time she had almost filled the sheet, she was smiling to herself and humming.

When Kate was done drawing the face at the easel, she went around to everyone and commented on their drawing. When she got to Daughter, Daughter looked up with a defiant look, as if daring her to take her to task for doodling.

"Ah," Kate said, "You're doodling. I love to doodle. Can I see what you've done?"

Daughter passed the paper over to Kate, sat back and folded her arms.

"What a gift you have for drawing!" Kate said. "Your little creatures are so alive! They look like they could jump right off the page! You need to keep drawing like this and expressing yourself. You're a very good artist with a unique talent."

Daughter looked startled and then she grinned at Kate.

"I'm sorry I didn't do the face," she said, "It was just too hard."

"It was too advanced for you right now," Kate said, "Maybe when you're older, you'll want to try it again. But for right now, just keep doing what you're doing. You're fine just the way you are."

Son decided the art class wasn't advanced enough, so he's opting for Kate's adult painting class. Maybe Daughter will want to take the kid's clay sculpture class someone told me about, because she's even better at clay sculpting than she is at drawing. We're looking into it. With her, everything depends on the instructor. It takes a special person to see through the defiant, arrogant-appearing surface to the little girl underneath who is always afraid that she's not measuring up.

That's why learning at home is such a good fit for her. Unlike her last teacher, I don't think that learning under pressure is something everyone has to master, especially when they're in second grade. Nor do I think that there's only one way to learn or that every kid should learn the same things at the same age. Daughter may never learn to draw a face using vertical and horizontal lines to anchor the features. She may not make her living with art. She may decide to run a daycare, something she talks about a lot.

Whatever she does, she'll do it with a unique touch and bring to it something that no one else can. Speaking of which, the photo at the beginning of this post is what she drew during the art class. Some of the little creatures are labeled "moing moings". They're something like rabbits and people get upset with them a lot. They're not bad, Daughter says. It's just that they always have to do things their way and sometimes that gets them into trouble, but they don't mean to cause trouble for other people. She says they're really lovable and all they want is for people to let them be themselves. Don't we all?


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