This past Thanksgiving I had the privilege of giving my four-year-old grandson an art lesson – he said he didn’t know how to draw a dog, and I offered to show him how. I have a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts and was a Montessori preschool teacher for a dozen years, so I have often given this lesson, which has always worked out well. My premise is that the child knows what a dog looks like but is not sure how to acceptably translate the thought, the idea, into lines on paper. My goal is to demonstrate that the process is intuitive, a phenomenon approaching common sense, that drawing is in fact a natural skill that anyone – especially a child – can learn.

To get him started I guided Tony’s hand in drawing the closed shape of the dog’s body (something like a rectangle or circle, whatever his hand suggested). Starting with a general shape breaks the deadlock of “I don’t know how,” since any child actually ready to draw a dog already knows how to draw a circle. It’s like saying, okay, what does this thing look like? Although the “How to Draw” books don’t say so explicitly, it is a way into drawing. It opens the mind to the project by not requiring an immediate product – to the contrary, the expectation of product is exactly what causes us to go blank when we want to draw. For the child as for the adult artist this step initiates a fundamental process through which the details will come in their own time. You are staking out a territory in which to find the details.

As for those, I asked Tony how many legs a dog needs and then moved our pencil to where they might go, and together we added them; similarly the tail, head and ears. I wanted not only to demonstrate the process of creating, but also that a drawing doesn’t have to be “perfect” to be “real.” And because my job was to help him draw, I didn’t just sketch a stick-figure dog to copy – while strict copying has an important place in art, it takes more discipline than imagination, the latter being Tony’s starting point. And I was inviting to work with me: it’s a rare child that can’t be drawn into a process whose time for him has come. I meant to show him that, once we’d started, we had only to move the pencil over the paper and draw, to let it out. Drawing is basically the way an artist learns, so that when you’ve learned enough, the drawing is done.

About the time we got to the dog’s head, Tony lost interest, so I suggested we just color it – it was a pretty nifty dog, neither adult work nor scribbling but a nice blend, I thought, a successful collaboration. My previous "art sudents" would have been proud of their part in such a rendering and moved on from there, but not Tony: he refused. When I tried to persuade him, he walked away. When I asked why, he said, “That’s not my dog, that’s your dog!”

Not My Dog

I was floored. Tony had accused me of betrayal – yet for previous children our collaboration had helped them take a first step toward drawing elaborate, confident pictures – dinosaurs on volcanoes and more. In each case it had seemed that, together, we had opened up their creative powers.

What Happened with My Grandson?

To start at the beginning, Tony strikes me as an unusual child in a number of ways. For instance, when we all went to the library to borrow books for their visit he found a paperback with a photo of Superman on the front. He’d liked the movie and said he thought this book might “have” what he wanted; for close to half an hour he pored over this text-heavy paperback. Still studying the last few pages as we moved toward the checkout he finally announced that it wasn’t what he “thought”— he didn’t want it. And he didn’t want any other book, either. So he is a child who knows what he wants, who's doing all he can to find it.

Tony turned four this summer, while his sister is nearly seven and starting to read chapter books. Tony, identifying with Abby, seems to want to get beyond picture books, too, although he doesn’t yet read at all. When their dad reads a chapter book to the two of them together, Tony listens and thinks and asks questions, getting a surprisingly good handle on much of the content, though sometimes it is clearly beyond him. Further, if a book that engages his sister doesn't engage him, he won’t, like many younger siblings, just act bored. For instance, when I tried James Herriott’s Treasury for Children, both kept an open mind for a few pages but neither could relate to the story. It was not for Abby, it was not for Tony.

Tony's parents showed me a book that he and a friend had “written” at preschool, a rambling narrative about animals and people and cars involved in improbable adventures, with the text (several pages long) transcribed by Tony's teacher. The boys made all the illustrations which, without exception, were what we typically call scribbles. Actually they were not scribbles, which are nondescriptive scratchings without any form, but more like the circles or mandalas that two- to three-year-olds create when they first pay attention to what they are drawing. Rather than simple circles, Tony and his friend’s mandalas were spirals, and thinking back, they were narrative: little squares and dots, carefully colored in and caught up in the spirals, seemed to mark episodes in the story. For Tony and his friend, I’m sure the symbology was clear.

Understanding Children’s Art

Do I project a lot into Tony’s “scribbles”? I am only hoping to decipher what he projects into them. I should add that over the years I have met a number of small boys (but only one girl) who were caught up in such fantasy worlds, – I think of them as my “lost boys.” Some drew or colored and some just talked on and on, as if no one ever listened anyway. I always wanted to get these children's toes, for a start, to touch the ground so they might communicate with the rest of the world. Drawing with them seemed to help.

But Tony is more practical than these boys. While his head is way up there in the clouds, his feet are firmly on the ground. For instance, he will go on and on singing a song for an audience, making it up as he goes, but he doesn’t seem to be lost in it; he knows he’s entertaining us and is pleased to be the center of attention, – he is definitely working to make that song good enough to hold the limelight.

Also Tony is used to being listened to, and that is probably the critical difference between him and my lost boys. Tony's parents listen. By answering his questions – confirming his efforts – they teach him how to think for himself. They do this consistently and well. And, critically, Tony’s parents also work to help their children generalize: they routinely demonstrate how to draw conclusions. Rather than try to field an endless series of why’s they will answer a few and then say, e.g., “Well, Tony, that’s how (whatever it is) works,”– establishing the fact that it takes a conclusion to round out a thought, that a well-founded answer to a question gives permission to move on.

I’d guess that Tony is building a personal hypothesis, a sort of Big Bang Theory of his own, to bring himself abreast of his beloved sister, who is his constant reference point. Although he often protests that Abby is unfair or disrespectful to him, these two children rarely fight. He does, however, want to share center stage. Unlike my lost boys, to whom no one listens at all, Tony knows he’s looking for an answer, a method, a strategy. He knows the point of the process, even if he hasn’t quite grasped the means to achieve it. Tony understands has to engage, not just ramble.

My Part

In working with Tony I’m sure I missed some clues: one must never forget that what succeeds with one child may not succeed with another – it might, but not necessarily; that's why, when we drew the dog’s body, I paid close attention to Tony's response, trying to follow the shape he was making but guiding it to completion as a closed form, different from a spiral. It was honest give and take.

When we got to the legs, I should have looked closer for his guidance – he registered a wee hesitation when we reached the feet, to each of which, imagining that this was a joint project, I added a couple of toes. He must have felt the contradiction, which I discounted – he wasn’t looking for intimate detail. (Toes would have worked for Abby because she already draws quite nicely.) In hindsight I suspect that Tony expected stick legs. Although he allowed me to continue from there, I did sense a pulling away – I had already lost him.

Most of all I regret that his response, “That’s your dog, not my dog!” so completely surprised me that I didn’t pursue it immediately. I would like to have said, “OK, let’s draw your dog. Where shall we start?” We might both have learned more.

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Books to Consider
All titles available on Amzon.com, new and used.

Draw Alien Fantasies (Learn to Draw: Inspiration & Ideas for Young Artists) (Paperback from $1.85). The 11 year old reviewer says its simple-shapes-to complex-drawings approach taught him how to draw "cool aliens."

Understanding Children's Drawings by Cathy A. Malchiodi (Paperback from $25). Reviews are from adults, sounds like a straightforward treatment, readable and insightful.

Drawing with Children by Mona Brookes (Paperback from $6.88 – 27 reviews!). "Not exactly a book for children, but a book that will help YOU teach children! :o)" Parents & grandparents who reviewed said it taught them how to draw, too. I think this is the one I'll get for .

The Amazon url: http://www.amazon.com/gp/homepage.html/103-5932886-9543062. Search "Books", refined to "Children's Books", keywords "Drawing with Children." There are only 29 titles at this level, very searchable for titles that work for you!

Some Questions for You

• Do you draw? If so, what do you draw, and how long have you been drawing?

• Have you ever taught a child to draw? What worked best?

• Do you agree that any child can learn to draw?

• If you don’t like to draw, can you pinpoint anything specific in your experience that caused you not to try?

•If you are an artist or art teacher, or a nanny or parent, do my assessments here ring true?

I’ll do my best to respond via the blog.