An Open Letter to Parents

 THE ‘DAILY DRAW’: ENRICHING LANGUAGE AT HOME AND SCHOOL

Please read  and consider how the "daily draw" might help your children,
those of  friends, neighbors and community, and, indeed, children the world over!

The basic message:

1) Children are born with a propensity to draw from approximately age two. A graphic language begins to emerge with random scribbles and soon evolves into crude geometric forms, simple representations and eventually, complex story-telling pictures. We begin with a summary statement: There is no need to teach children to draw but there is a need to nurture its growth and development. Teaching, as distinct from motivating, runs the risk of bringing to an end  a natural language that emerges spontaneously and evolves through frequent practice. The adult role is to motivate by discussing themes,  recalling events, staging experiences and then leaving the artist alone to draw.

2). Children need language to make sense of the experience of ‘growing up’. Oral expression is basic for practical communication. Drawing is the language through which they are best able to express subtle and complex perceptions, thoughts, and feelings. These are vital for mental development and emotional health and healing. Drawing, because it is without a code, is the child’s most effective language for achieving these goals.

3) Drawing is a significant but underused aid for acquiring literacy and more than other media, it parallels literacy’s broad structures. Schemata  - the child’s representations of persons, things, and places -  are closely related to nouns and collectively, to vocabulary. (For example, the combined head/body circle with extended lines for arms and legs is the young child’s ‘word’ or ‘phrase’ for the human form.) There is an important difference: words are a standardized social code; schemata are un-coded personal inventions. Organizing schemata as story-telling pictures is roughly equivalent to the syntactical use of words. Through casual discussions about drawing - first as motivation, and after the drawing is finished, as appreciation - children expand their vocabulary and learn the art of syntactical thinking and expression in both media.

There it is in a nutshell: and why, we wonder, is spontaneous drawing relatively neglected in the home/school curriculum, while literacy receives all  the attention? Many children never get to draw except superficially; others are encouraged to draw but are left on their own without the essential care and attention - the motivation - of a parent. Only a few get daily and systematic help in "daily draw" programs. Without this nurturing, an incredible gift ‘withers on the vine’. When drawing is nurtured, the benefits flow: intellectual development, mental health, mental healing, more effective learning, empathy for others, empathy for the natural world, bonding with parents and teachers, and the gradual creation of a healthy integrated, optimally educated human person.

THE "DAILY DRAW" FOR HOME AND SCHOOL:  The practice we recommend was given its name by a class of enthusiastic children in grade four. Two important points need to be made: 1) the adult in attendance does not  have to be a professional teacher, or a specialist in art education, to be the care-giver  who effectively nurtures drawing-as-language. 2) It is equally important to realize that all children benefit from the "daily draw", without exception. (The Drawing Network philosophy extends  from the second year of life through middle school and beyond.)

* THE NEED FOR A CARING ADULT: When children are left on their own  they quickly run out of ideas or fall back on stereotypes. Every language has its characteristic learning environment. Spoken words are learned from unconscious imitation, informal correction, and frequent use. Literacy  requires years of formal and informal teaching and learning. Drawing-as-language is nurtured as a daily activity with a parent or teacher helping to motivate a theme. The "daily draw" is an occasion for sharing ideas, discussing themes, building excitement for a drawing or a series of drawings. (Conversations about important topics, provides a perfect medium for the bonding of child to adult and for the acquisition of literacy.)   

Adult notions of  "correctness", making it look more real, should not be imposed on the child-artist:  drawing is both symbolic and representational. Nor is it wise to add your own marks to the child’s drawing nor to draw on another sheet while the child is drawing nor to offer models for copying or formulas for solving representational problems. (Example: ‘balloons’ as an easy way to draw humans or animals.)  These kindly-meant recipes  prevent the natural unfoldment of the child's own expressive language which is based on personal perception, memory, knowledge, feelings, and imagination. Left to their own devices, children will always find an adequate solution for a problem of representation.

* BASIC STRATEGIES FOR AUTHENTIC DRAWING: Children come to the "daily draw" with varying degrees of confidence. Young children are generally enthusiastic but in our culture it doesn’t take long for the "I can’t draw" syndrome to appear. You might be wondering, "If we as parents and teachers are not to offer models and formulas, what can we do to help children gain confidence?" The following strategies are meant to expand the adult role. Common sense, experience and knowing your children will tell you when and how to use them:

** VARIED THEMES: Initiate a wide and appealing range of themes. Divide them into categories: 1) themes that relate to the child’s familiar  experiences in the home, school, and community;  2) themes that are brand new and consciousness-expanding such as stories, poems, songs, television programs, field trips, posed models, still life subjects and so on. There are endless possibilities. Balance the diet with themes that are observed, those that are remembered and those that are imagined.

** VISUALIZATION: motivation is a word-game: visualization, on the other hand, transforms words into graphic symbols in the child’s imagination. As part of motivation, have the drawer examine elements of the discussion "on the inner screen of the imagination". (Children will soon understand what you mean by this phrase.) You can be more technical with older children and point out that visualization is like programming the preconscious much as we program computers. Visualization is particularly important if the drawing is based on memory and/or imagination. Visualizing how the drawing might appear on the blank sheet of paper is also helpful. For example: "Imagine how (the centre of interest) will look in your drawing. How will it appear in its  environment? What details are important?" Keep visualization and guided imagery (see below) light and suggestive, casual and simple with young children, progressively more detailed with older drawers. It is not necessary to account for every detail because they will be invented as part of the ongoing creative process as the drawing gains momentum.

** GUIDED IMAGERY: This is visualization in action, most useful for drawings where there is no visible model. It may be thought of as a follow-up remedial strategy after a first drawing has been found wanting. (I am thinking of older drawers here.)  The adult care-giver orchestrates a series of visualizations that give shape, meaning, and emotional intensity to a drawing that seems to require a more dramatic, close-up attention. Suppose the theme is school bullying and the subject a fight between two kids, most drawers will  place the drama at a distance because of the challenge of drawing figures in action.  A "guided imagery" session will bring the drawer closer to the centre: "Imagine that you are watching from a tree or a window and you can see everything very clearly. The  fight is going on just below you. How do you see this in your imagination? Try it on the inner-screen! For interesting drawings, get close to the action."

** A SERIES OF DRAWINGS ON ONE THEME: There is a tendency to schedule  "once off" drawings when clearly a series would be possible and rewarding. Here visualization and guided imagery are particularly useful. Older children can be taught to employ visualization and guided imagery on their own,  an important advance towards independence and a self-managed approach to drawing. Older children love the comic book format.  Both the series approach and the comic strip approach are useful in social studies where stories are a way to record history.

** TAKING TURNS  SUGGESTING THEMES: To avoid an authoritarian "teacher knows best" atmosphere, introduce a 'contract' approach that places responsibility for theme on the care-giver one day and the child-artist the next. (In my own teaching in a secondary high school I found this an excellent way to break a dependency on stereotype, formula craft, and the resistance older kids have to remedial strategies.)

** DRAWING AS A GAME: As an occasional remedial strategy for older children present the "daily draw" as a game and use game format to define the approach. The goal may be to take the pressure off "making it look more real" or to generate a stronger empathy for the subject.  (The Drawing Network goal is for  "empathic realism" which covers the crude but honest representations of children and the serious productions of older children and young people. We distinguish this from the false goal of "naturalism" or "photographic verisimilitude.)  Children know that games have rules and rules must be followed. Here are variations:

*** THE CONTINUOUS LINE GAME FOR OLDER CHILDREN AND POST-NAIVES: The basic rule is this:  the drawing must be one continuous contour line from beginning to end with no stopping, no lifting, no rough approximations, no speedy generalizations. The theme is motivated as usual. The drawer is asked to imagine that he is following with the point of the drawing tool the contour edges of the imagined subject, the remembered subject or the visible subject. (Whichever is appropriate.) The continuous line rule forces the performance into the preconscious where empathy is a natural byproduct. (A not-too-slow-not-too-fast pace is critically important to keep the focus on touching the contour!) Once the basic continuous line rule has been mastered, a variation permits lifting the drawing tool to relocate to the start of a new contour line. This minimizes the 'clothes line effect' where  lines that follow the rule conscientiously add nothing to content. (Note: content is the integration of perception, thought and feeling.)

The game can be played in any drawing situation, when, for example, the subject is a posed human person, an imagined incident, or an observed still-life subject. Still-life and human models can be visible and drawn from observation or studied and removed as a set-up for a memory drawing. The continuous line rule forestalls intellectual decisions which would weaken empathic identification and diminish language values. The mental mechanics of this is that a continuous line is always one jump ahead of any attempt to  control the drawing intellectually. The drawing is said to be on "automatic pilot", a metaphor that works so long as there is empathy and continuous line. Another metaphor: 'Touch' the subject on  the paper as though it were the real thing or another: draw as though you are the pilot of a jumbo jet and if you stop, the plane will crash.

Game drawings are never realistic but the subject is always recognizable and formal integration is typically strong and integrated. The value of the drawing is emphatically on  performance, not  finished product.

*** THE SHUT-EYE GAME: Occasionally drawing with eyes closed shifts the focus to touching and feeling, that is, to empathy. The above game drawing rules apply in this strategy but one unique to shut-eye drawing is that so long as the drawing tool is moving, the eyes must be closed. This is meant to be a remedial strategy for older drawers.

*** THE DRAWING WITH YOUR OTHER HAND GAME: This too can be a separate game or an extension of the above. The same rules apply: slow pace, empathic touch, continuous performance.

* A REGULAR TIME AND PLACE: Children love to draw once they discover that each drawing is accepted as a personal expression and that there is no single or  'correct' way to represent the world and its endless manifestations. And yet the seriousness of drawing-as-language must be communicated. Authentic drawing is a serious game! The "daily draw" is most effective and received in a serious mood, if it is organized as a daily activity in a designated time and place. A well-run kindergarten is a good model. It is serious to the extent that acquiring language through practice is serious.

Ideally at home there is a 'drawing corner', a table where paper and drawing tools are  available for additional drawing when the spirit moves. Otherwise, a kitchen table or some other flat surface will serve. At school, drawing is integrated into the general curriculum in those circumstances when it can contribute to learning: in language arts, science, social studies and in art classes where it generates authentic imagery for further development in other media and other techniques.

* MATERIALS ARE MINIMAL: For paper,  a light cartridge  or computer paper, clear on both sides or used and clear on one side.  A large drawing pad with a firm backing is a good solution, especially for field trips. The best drawing tool is a good quality ballpoint or a fine tipped felt which remove the possibility of erasing.   Erasing is avoided because it takes the emphasis from  process and places it on product. It also tacitly admits that photographic verisimilitude is more important that empathic realism. Erasing in the context of the "daily draw"  leaches authentic drawing’s many language values.

* THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTOUR LINE: The essential technique for the "daily draw" is contour line.  Contour  refers to the edges of forms. It can be explained to children by comparing an egg, which has no contour except its outline, to an egg beater which is very complex and has many in-lines i.e. contours. One child is reported to have said, "I just put a line around what I know." She might have added "...and what I see, feel, imagine and remember." For the "daily draw" I would establish the practice of contour line. Tone, texture, and color don’t add to language but are valuable additions later in sessions devoted to fully developed drawings and paintings.

* ADDING WORDS TO DRAWINGS: Each drawing is accompanied by an interior monologue and conversations with the caring adult about theme and finished drawings contribute to literacy.  Motivated by the allure of the printed word, children add them to drawings and should be encouraged to do so. Adding words, short sentences, full paragraphs, and written compositions on separate sheets are all beneficial language activities related to drawing.

(click on drawing to view full-sized version)