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from Natural Life Magazine, July/August
2008 Her likeness to Raphael’s beloved cherubs was overwhelming – the same cherubs that grace greeting cards and coffee mugs. Photographs would capture the moment accurately. Still that was not enough. Metaphorically similar to how I gave birth to her, I wanted to create her essence perfectly myself with Raphael’s emotions and Leonardo’s realism. The journey to learning to draw began. However, the journey became littered with best intentions and unfinished sketches. I was missing something. Then Nature began revealing itself slowly. Early morning bird songs greeted Kaitlyn’s arrival. How did I miss all her beauty in my past hurried life? Finally, I understood that I needed to observe Nature before I could capture its beauty. “The most important thing for me is the direct observation of Nature in its light-filled existence.” —August Macke Yesterday, the girls and I took a long walk through the trails behind our house. Our senses were overfilling with nature’s calm transition from winter to spring. Snowdrops showed their whiteness after a long winter spell. The bright red cardinal whistled in the tree above our heads. Returning calls came from the south. As we crossed the field, the first caller’s whistle grew fainter. The second caller’s song led us towards the woods. The wood lot floor of leaves was uncovered from months of snow cover. The bubbling creek flowing through the woods was our companion. A beaver left the bottom half of a gnawed tree to mark our path. A butterfly flew from its resting place on a branch as Brooklyn’s sudden steps scared it away. A chipmunk dug the earth searching for its spring meal and then scampered up a tree. Brooklyn and Kaitlyn joined the male chickadees, singing their mating songs: feee-bee. The absence of the mallard ducks left Brooklyn with the belief that they are nesting on newly laid eggs. Our walk left us with many things to contemplate. With the creative centre and art gallery behind our house, we’re able to explore many artists’ works including pottery, drawings, paintings and sculptures. Our walks through the trails and gardens usually end with a visit to the latest exhibit. I would like our walks to become a metaphor of our lives. Taking in nature’s beauty allows us to capture its essence and present it to the world. “Choose only one master…Nature.” —Rembrandt For the last year, drawing has evolved from the ability to personalize my memories to an indispensable part of our exploration of the world. We’ve drawn the male body, different flowers, a variety of birds and animals, the lifecycle of a frog and so forth. I’m hoping to impart drawing as a habit instead of something we sit down to do. That probably has been the hardest thing to implement with our busy schedules and the gazillion things we want to do. Regardless, Brooklyn and Kaitlyn have become young artists with their drawing, painting and pottery. Imagine my surprise when we started drawing one night and my three-year-old began reciting feelings of inadequacy after spending ten seconds drawing a nest of baby mice. Brooklyn found her scissors, cut out the drawing and threw it on the floor. Constant murmurs of “I don’t like it; I can’t draw; I don’t like the drawing” drowned out my well-meaning comments. She stabbed her drawing repeatedly with her newly sharpened pencil. The day before, Brooklyn was listening intently to a young woman’s conversation with her friends, describing her hopelessness and the impossibility of completing her art assignment. Brooklyn internalized the girl’s negative feelings about drawing from a 30-minute encounter she witnessed. Compare that to the countless hours we’ve enjoyed drawing/painting and other art experiences! After becoming quite frustrated by her attitude, I suggested that she go do something else while I finished my drawing. She began tracing alphabet characters from an activity book she was given. After five minutes, I realized that she was on her dandy way to becoming that young woman who disliked drawing and painting. I tried to show her how she can change her drawing. Another mistake on my part was saying to her that she can erase it. She started frantically erasing her punctured piece of toil. Again and again and again with the words, “I don’t like it.” Staring down at her was a mother at a loss for words of encouragement. The disappointment and inner criticism of children about capturing realistic portrayals of objects was not supposed to happen until the ages of eight to ten. Development stages and milestones take on very little meaning in our house. But I was not prepared for this. Up until now, Brooklyn had seen finished pieces and assumed that they are perfect from the first stroke. I had a Eureka moment: She was feeling the same things I feel every time I draw. The only difference is that I do not voice it, fearing that she will overhear me being negative. But I know that we would never improve without some form of self criticism. Slowly the words came out: “So you don’t like it. You don’t like how it looks. You want it to look like the picture.” “Yes.” “Sometimes I don’t like my drawings, either. Can I draw your right eye?” I verbalized my thoughts as I drew. “First, I’ll look at your eye. My pencil and eye work together. When I start at the left corner, my eyes will move to the right following the outline of your eye. At the same time, the pencil also begins to move on the paper. As my eye notices the changes in direction of the line so does my pencil. Here’s the top of your eye. I’ll stop here. It’s a little too long. Let’s erase a bit. There. I can draw the bottom part now. The top and bottom lines will meet here. I don’t like this part because it’s not high enough. I’ll erase a bit. That’s better. … I notice you have brown eyes and a black pupil. There are reflections in your eye. I’ll leave a bit of it light and shade in the other parts. Then I’ll make it darker. Alright. What do you think?” Her returning smile and enthusiastic comments tell me that we’ve jumped a hurdle. "Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” – Scott Adams You can find blank paper stacked in almost every room of our house. Whenever they have the urge, Brooklyn and Kaitlyn can reach for the paper, pencils or their watercolor boxes. Coloring books are eerily absent. Having grown up with a wealth of coloring books, I understood drawing to be lines on paper to be filled with single colors. I want the girls to see how lines are only used to define space. Strokes, hatches, scribbles, shading, dots and organic lines can all be used. Although all forms of art have their allure, realistic art always take my breath away. The same effect occurs for many people. Perhaps, it was our own attempts at portraying realism that left us disappointed. When we see people, locations or objects drawn or painted convincingly, we believe that the artist must have a special talent. They do. However, such talent is attainable by anyone who desires it. Our minds have to redefine how we see the world and its natural beauty. Most importantly, we need to review our internal store of images. With a large reservoir of stored stereotypical symbolic images, the mind is clouded from real perception. Retrieving a symbolic image is more convenient than recreating one by observing. Examples of symbolic images include the following:
Symbolic images are critical for a child as their observation and drawing skills develop. Children should be left to find their own images. Instead, they are constantly overwhelmed by symbolic images in picture books, children’s programming and education materials. Symbolic images include the use and teaching of design shapes, inorganic lines and primary colors. They are tributes to the human ingenuity and all human-made innovations. Interestingly, design shapes, inorganic lines and angles supports a child’s learning of the alphabet and math, essentials in modern language communication and thought...by which, human society believes differentiate us from all other animals and separates us from Nature. Outside of our concrete and designed lives, Nature shows its
form. There are no squares filled with singular colors. Its shapes are created
by values edging along side other values. Beginners to drawing redefine their
vision by learning to see forms in value changes. Values can be different colors
or grayscale. The edges are interactions between values and may be hard, firm,
soft or lost. not require mixing accurate colors. Colors flow into each other. Although objects may be of one color, viewed at different angles, with different lighting or surrounded by other colors, you will see the color evolve into different values. When we discuss color we have to take note of lightness, chroma and hue. Lightness describes the brightness of a color. Chroma describes intensity of the color. Hue is the literal description we give to the color. “Anything can be any color at any time depending on what color everything else is at the time.” — Keith Crown From all the books, toys, videos and television programming, color has become another part of preschool curriculum. Everyone seems to be a color expert from Fisher-Price toy designers to characters like Barney, Tele-tubbies and Dora. With just Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Black, White, Brown, Gray and Pink, the full color experience is narrowly defined. Children are asked to classify colors into those 11 narrow descriptors, without regard for lightness, chroma and hue. “A rose by any other name is still a rose.” —William Shakespeare Let’s hope that we can enjoy all the colors that the world has to offer. Colors remind us of our diversity. Although special in each of our uniqueness, like colors we blend into each other and the edges just represent our interactions. I will continue to develop my drawing skills and slowly move away from my grayscale to explore colors further, in both a physical and metaphysical sense. Now that the warm weather is here, for my daughters and I, the days will be filled with walks and exploring. We will put on our rose colored glasses to give the world a pale pinkish tint. Then we’ll take them off and look at world through new eyes. “Look at all the colors on this rock. There are specks of light pinkish gray, light bluish gray, dark gray, blackish blue and blue. Do you feel the grain? What does it feel like? Yes, it’s a little coarse like salt crystals. This piece is jagged, but there are also smooth rocks that have been worn down over time by weather, water and wind. Let’s look for some more.” “I’ll sketch the rock in my book and then paint it with my water colors.” Junyee Wang lives in Toronto, Ontario with her husband and two daughters. Her blissful life is evolving along taking inspiration from her children and nature’s beauty. Having recently purchased a small acreage in Prince Edward County, she dreams of studio space with strawbale walls surrounded by permaculture gardens. |
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