The child that participated in the drawing activity was a 15-year old Lily studying in the 10th grade and living with her mother and an older sister. Her parents have been divorced for 5 years, but the girl gets along well with both parents. At the same time, her parents informed me that Lily is an introvert, whose social life is less active than her private time alone, a claim that has been later supported by her drawings. Lily grew up in a small quiet town, and not disliking physical activity as a kid, she preferred indoor entertainment, such as watching cartoons and movies, listening to music, drawing and making up stories. Nowadays, the girl does not take special art classes and draws occasionally when in the mood. When we met, Lily seemed quite a shy, but nice child excited about the activity.
The media that I chose for the activity were oil pastel and colored pencils, and Lily would be drawing on the sketching A5 110 lb paper. I chose these media, as her parents told me she loved oil pastel, and the colored pencils were present to give Lily a choice or an opportunity to combine both media, which the child appreciated a lot and subsequently used during the creative process. To motivate her to open up to the activity, I chose her favorite café as a meeting place, where I had a chance to treat her with a cake and orange juice. From the very outset, I asked Lily’s mother, who is my good acquaintance, to watch the process from the spot, where she would not be visible, or stay outside the café. This measure was taken specifically to relax the girl and make her feel that her work would not be judged by the close person. Also, I brought some of my favorite drawings and the ones of my nephew, so that she would not feel obliged to either produce a superior work of art or downplay her skills. After explaining her reasons for this experiment and told her that after we finish, we will share another cake, she opened up the pencil and oil pastel boxes and started drawing. During the whole process she stayed quiet, only occasionally abstracting herself from the activity to look around, make some remarks or eat.
My expectations about her drawing were derived from the information I had about her, so I expected that she would be on the pseudo-naturalistic stage of artistic development, judging from her long-term attraction to drawing and her age. I presumed that she would be a nonvisually minded child due to her closed personality that needed expression of the feelings that she otherwise would not usually show. I believed that as a person, who experienced parents’ divorce and did not have many friends, Lily would reveal her feelings and desires in the drawings, and my expectations were fulfilled in the end-product of her creativity. According to Lowenfeld and Brittain:
In general we see that the nonvisually minded children concentrate in their representations more on the expression of the self and the emotions resulting from it. . The nonvisually minded child concentrates more on the self and draws environment only when it has emotional significance for him. (223)
Indeed, as I was watching Lily draw the first pseudo-naturalistic picture with the landscape and the red tree on it, I asked her how why she decided to draw the baseline first and then fill in the space above and below it. The girl replied that she was just drawing what she felt inside and that she was not aiming at creating a realistic image of a landscape, so her use of the baseline and pseudo-realism, as well as an abstract presentation of wind by drawing blue and red dash-lines was an absolutely conscious act. For this picture, she used a combination of the two presented media.
Starting a new picture, she hesitated for some time and then suddenly pressed hard on the paper with the oil pastel, the only media used this time, thus creating the lines for the abstract flowers. This time, Lily became more relaxed about her activity and quickly created a picture of three flowers that were reflecting herself and two closest persons in her life: her mother and sister. For the last picture, Lily decided to use only the colored pencils, as she created an abstract yellow star in the middle and then filled in the remaining space with the violet blue color with the chaotic, but conscious movements.
During the observation of Lily, I witnessed her open up to me on the pieces of paper, and from the very beginning of her taking the oil pastel in the hand, I saw her idea gradually grow from the simple abstract drawing of grass to the complication of the landscape with a range of symbols, such as a tire tree swing and occasional green circles that were the rare leaves of the red tree. I decided not to interfere in the process, as I understood that the girl knew what she was doing, and my interruption could actually affect her sincere act of creativity. After the process was finished, I bought another cake, and as we were looking at the final products, I saw that the whole experience of drawing and showing the results to me was very exciting for Lily, and for this reason I advised her to take art classes and try new ways and media to express her beautiful inner world, as I believe that she is potentially able to create many interesting and fascinating artworks, as well as find a great way of expressing her introverted self.
Works Cited
Lowenfeld, Viktor, and W. Lambert Brittain. Creative and mental growth. 4th ed. New York: Macmillan, 1964. Print.
