Thursday, November 17, 2011

Mary Writes JOHN

I have only watched two little kids learn to draw so far, but I find the way Mary does it very interesting. I have noticed for months (and considering she just turned three, months is about the duration of her being able to draw recognizable things) that she often draws from the "wrong" perspective but with the picture turning out exactly right/as intended. So, if I normally sit at the bottom of the page and draws a stick person in front of me, with feet at the bottom of the page and head at the top of the page, Mary will sit anywhere (e.g., at either side of the page, at the top of the page) and draw the stick figure so its orientation is correct to the bottom of the page. Surely there has got to be a name for this, but I don't know what it is and I'm not explaining it well. If she's sitting at the top of the page, she'll draw the stick figure's head closest to her, then the body, then the feet furthest away from her, and when she's all done having drawn the figure upside down, she rotates it around and presents it as done. And she'll do that from the side too.


Yesterday we were writing thank you notes for her birthday gifts, so I'd write out some sentences that she spoke and then she would draw some pictures. In the above, she drew in blue a Girl With Dress (rotated sideways) and in black a Dinosaur with Teeth (rotated at an angle) . . . but then she startled me by writing JOHN (well, really she wrote JOOOHN). She has not previously had the fine motor skills to write letters when I'd actually tried to test her.

But most interesting to me is that she was sitting at the bottom of the page (as you, the viewer are sitting), and she wrote John from there, running up along the edge of the page so that it would be read correctly only if the viewer rotated the page 90 degrees.

(Interesting, detailed description of stages of drawing here by Stanford)

Bonus Quote of the Day for Meditation: According to St. Francis de Sales, devotion is "promptness and diligence in the observance of the commandments and the accomplishment of inspired or counseled good works." (emphases mine)

  • Do I do my duties? Mostly, yes.
  • Do I do my duties promptly and diligently? Hhhhmmmm.
  • Additionally, do I do them with the basic Christian virtue of cheerfullness?  !!!!!!!!!
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  1. EnidNovember 17, 2011 at 10:25:00 AM EST

    Very impressive with the writing! The article was good; I always called those drawings "squid people" but tadpole is much more accurate. Our Rachel draws upside down like that. She turned four in October, and has been drawing quite well since the age of three. The first time I watched her doing it, I thought, "What in the world is she drawing?" When she was done, she presented it with a flourish by flipping it over, and it was a very good drawing of a cat face! Better than I'd do now, that's for sure. LOL She has one of those magna-doodle pads that only has the pen attached to it and watching her draw is fascinating to me because she's so darn fast with it. It is an impressive sight to behold, and quite common from what I've read, but I can't help but wonder if there's something more to it with children who draw that way (do they learn differently, will certain subjects come easier for them, is she a genius - ha ha, etc.). Oh, and she's the only one of my four who have ever done that. It will be very interesting to see how they learn as they get older.

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