pg. 110 So the last thing I asked the adult participants to draw was ‘something which does not exist’. I was interested in whether they understood what was meant, and this was partly why I asked for them not to confer before the drawing task had been completed – but I have no knowledge of whether they did or not.
Allegory Machine
Fairy Ghost
Mythological
Monster/alien
Fig 6:15 Something which doesn’t exist drawings
Six per cent did not do a drawing, including one head teacher, who said to me – I didn’t know what you meant.
Of the 7 people who drew a unicorn (the others in ‘mythological’ category were mermaid and a gryphon), there is a distinct correlation between how they drew it and their horse – i.e. horse with horn, which ties in with Karmilloff Smith and Merry and Robins’ findings that children will adapt a known habit of drawing – it seems adults do too.
pg. 111 And this was also evident in those who drew angels or fairies where they drew ‘people’ in the style they had already exhibited, with wings – i.e. in the illustration above, this person had drawn a stick person for their ‘person’ and thus a ‘stick person with wings’ for their fairy.
Looking at all the drawings of things which do not exist, it is interesting to note that it is the people who appear to be more confident about drawing who have branched out, particularly in the allegory and machine categories, drawing things very different to what they drew before. It is almost that, in their confidence, they do not need to hide behind their habits.
Wilson and Wilson (1977) consider that if you draw something regularly, you develop what they call a ‘programme’ for drawing that thing, and the more you draw the more programmes you develop. The more programmes you have, the more you can swap about, so to speak, which means you will be able to draw more things
competently.
I feel there is something to add to this – the more you draw, the more you see – your brain learns to dissect colour, shape, shadow and form. Georgia O'Keeffe22 said ‘Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven't time, and to see takes time - like to have a friend takes time.’ That is not to suggest that every drawing has to be a minute examination at cell-structure level. Rather it means that the more we DO do those closely observed drawings, the more we understand how things are, and, thus, can translate the knowledge to different subjects.
The corollary is that the less we draw, the less we see – the nuances of how things are. Why is it you know a cow is not a horse? Seeing is the same – it’s noticing the little things, and learning ways of showing them. For most of us, if we don’t draw, then we cannot draw. It’s as simple as that. And when we do draw, we fall back on what we already know – the habit, the rusty programme.
Goodenough Draw a Man test
I decided to do a Goodenough draw-a-man test on the drawings of people above (Fig 6.3) - one from each category. Goodenough called her book ‘Measurement of Intelligence by Drawings’ and test comprises asking the person to draw ‘the very best
22
pg. 112 picture that you can’ (Goodenough 1975:85), and then scoring the picture according to what features have been put in – first the big ones like legs, arms, head, but getting increasingly detailed. This includes:
16d Eye detail – Glance. Requirement: The face must be shown in profile. The eye must be either be shown in perspective, as described in the preceding paragraph, or, if the ordinary almond form is retained, the pupil must be placed toward the front of the eye rather than in the centre. The scoring should be strict. (P 108) I made a table and scored. (see Appendix 1)
The only person with an IQ over 100 is a school caretaker, and the person with a mental age of 4.5 is a nursery school administrator. Cause for concern? No, not really. What I am suggesting in applying this test is that the test is nonsense in this circumstance, and was always suspect, perhaps. The caretaker can draw – he is one of those lucky people, who just picks up a pen and it happens. The administrator cannot draw. It probably didn’t interest her as a child, and she probably hasn’t drawn anything for years – in other words she hasn’t practised. There’s something instinctive in all the arts, and when you see someone who has got ‘it’ (or, dare I say, the X factor..) you just know – there’s a certain panache, confidence and air of it being easy. In the ‘draw a horse’ test, Person 1, a dinner supervisor, drew Horse C. This horse is accurate, but it lacks the va va voom that the caretaker has in his horse.
Fig 6:16 Caretaker’s Horse Dinner Supervisor’s Horse
It is interesting that both of them thought that drawing a horse was hard – the Caretaker gave it a 6/10 and the dinner Supervisor gave it 7/10.
The Goodenough Test was designed for children, to measure intelligence. In her ‘summary and conclusion’ Goodenough says:
9. Artistic ability is practically a negligible factor at these ages as far as influencing the score is concerned. (Goodenough 1975:82)
pg. 113 I would disagree. If, as often happens, a child is interested in drawing, then they will have practised drawing and thus will be more proficient. They will have developed one of Wilson & Wilson’s (1977) ‘programmes’. Wilson and Wilson consider that ‘Some programs function easily, smoothly, and with great sureness; these are the programs that are in continual use. Other programs, out of disuse or neglect, are outdated, ill-functioning, and unsatisfactory to individuals attempting to employ them and are thus easily aborted.’ (ibid 9) In other words, if you practise, no matter how old you are, your drawing will be more proficient than if you do not practice. It takes training, tuition and practice to be able to draw anything – unless you are one of the lucky ones.
Summing up:
So, are adults the ‘measure of all things’? (Di Leo (1970:122) What this small survey has shown is that there is a huge variety of style and ability in drawing among these adult members of school staff. Some do have talent for drawing, and some, to be frank, are rubbish at it.
What Anning and Ring (2004:124) conclude is that ‘our children deserve better than this.’ They are discussing the dearth of opportunities for children to draw, for drawings sake, both in school and in the home. ‘We need to recognise that multi- modality is core to their preferred ways of representing and communicating their growing understanding of the world and their roles as active members of
communities,’ (op cit) they say, and they conclude their book by saying ‘we need a society that can listen to children and recognise that perhaps their drawings may tell us much more about childhood than we ever imagined.’ (op cit)
And this means we need to stop comparing children’s drawings in a judgemental way to those done by adults, because there is no comparison. As Wolf said ‘drawing development must be understood not so much as a ladder of ascending stages, but as the development of a repertoire of choices.’ (Wolf 1997:189) – and, for me, this can happen at any age.
pg. 114
In Part One of this thesis, which is asking the question ‘Will the drawings done by Reception Class children (‘Rising Fives’) have a different quality, depth or detail after they have participated in a storytelling session compared with those drawings done without such an activity?’, I have looked at the concepts of story and drawing, and the literature regarding both, and I have drawn the conclusion that firstly, there is a difference between a ‘story’ and a ‘narrative’, and that the process I use is ‘story’. Secondly, that there are many different ways of drawing, and that the ‘deficit’ approach to drawings by children, brought about by comparing them to drawings by adults, is fraught with difficulties, since many adults cannot draw with visual
accuracy, which is the usual criteria.
In Part Two, I will examine the process I used in the classroom, focussing on a small group of children, where, together, stories were devised, and then drawings were done immediately afterwards. We will look at an invisible child, a child from an ethnic minority, and we will discuss why the children forgot one of the stories.
pg. 115