I’ve always been of the mind that we shouldn’t shape artists, but rather, give them the tools to explore and find the artist within themselves.

Miss 6 year old Teia, she draws these amazing pictures of people that have limbs that stretch all the way across the page or curl around to reach up to the head to move some hair off the face. One leg is often bent to take a pose, like a ballerina and hair is always accentuated so there is no doubt who that person is.

The clothes are full of detail; right down to the colours, pockets and patterns. She draws real people, but not in the ‘real’ sense.

Now if you were in a learning institution learning how to draw people, you wouldn’t learn to draw like this, you would learn to draw “proper” figures with each person in proportion and everything in place. But Teia’s drawings even though oversized, underweight and over accentuated, are actually full of emotion and expression! The bodies have this movement about them and when you see a person with horns, and slanted eyebrows, you know that this person is angry!

I don’t believe that she would be drawing this way if we were constantly over her shoulder telling her how she should draw. She’s basically been left to her own devices since she started to create art which was round about two years old! So when she comes home from school with pictures where the lines have already been created for her, I shake my head and think back to my kindergarten days when I was drawing in colouring in books. Nothing has changed…

The good thing is, when she is home, she is creating constantly…and we’ve also realised her art is a vent for her emotions and how she is feeling…

So I believe, to allow an artist to blossom, allow them this right from birth, don’t try to shape them, but give them the support and the tools to find their own way.

Arohanui,
Jo x