Susan Writes

Erin posted a picture on Facebook of her two-year-old daughter’s drawing, a lop-sided circle with lines crossed where Azalea’s marker began and stopped.  Erin wrote, “I spy a heart.  This is the first intentional shape that I’ve noticed Azalea draw, and I couldn’t be prouder.” 

            If Azalea is like my Grands, she’ll soon be drawing circle people.  Micah was almost four when he drew my portrait.  Using an orange marker, my Grand drew a lop-sided circle with three small dots in the center and a short, straight line under the dots.  He drew four lines that began inside the circle and extended far outside it.  The dots were my nose and eyes; the line under it was my mouth. Two lines beginning near the eyes were arms and two lines pointing down were legs.  A scribble at the circle’s top was hair, and dots immediately above the arm lines were ears.

            Micah was 5 ½ when he drew a picture of himself, his Pop, and me, and we were the same height in his drawing . We had circle heads with oval eyes and upturned one-line mouths.  Atop our heads, he portrayed hair perfectly: spirals for his curly hair, straight lines for mine, and none for Pop.  He drew stick people with one long line for our bodies and crossing lines half-way down the body for arms and very short inverted letter v’sfor legs. We’re holding hands, and I’m holding a heart-shaped balloon – one that flies, my Grand told me.  

            On another page, Micah drew several faces and he asked, “Gran, which one do you like best?”  I asked him to explain each face.  Most expressed an emotion: anger, surprise, happy, sad, disappointed.  One face yelled, really loud, and one was nothing, just there.  We talked about what might have happened to cause someone to have each face.  Micah gave some serious and some silly explanations.  Then he insisted I choose my favorite, and when I chose the smiling person, he said, “I knew you’d like it best.”

            At age six, Micah used every color in the box to create a stick figure drawing of his Pop.  An orange face, open purple mouth, round blue eyes circled in red.  The body, arms, legs and feet were all different colors.  The head was huge, but the arms and legs lengths were real life proportion to the body. My Grand was proud of his work and said that I would probably want to keep it.  

            I love kids’ drawings.  Simple and expressive.  Studies suggest that one can know a child’s home life, his intelligence, his ability to handle stress, and so much more by looking at his drawings, and that’s probably true.              But here’s my thoughts.  Let kids draw whatever they want, even arms where ears should be.  Let them explain (without criticizing or suggesting changes) what they drew.  And keep a few drawings, like a lop-sided circle that looks like a heart and a picture of Pop.

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