5 most famous myths about drawing
Drawing implies very useful and interesting activities. Much has been written about the benefits of drawing for children and adults. A child, having barely learned to hold a pencil, already makes his first drawings. And for adults painting is not only an enjoyable pastime. But there are some wide-spread myths about drawing. Here are the most famous ones.
Myth 1: If a child or adult uses black in his drawings, it means that he has psychological problems.
Very often teachers or parents worry when children use black in their drawings. Teachers take away the black paint, and offer children to use other, more vibrant colors. However, using black does not always indicate any psychological problems. More often we use white sheets of paper for drawing, and dark colors look more expressive, contrasting against a white sheet. After all, we read texts printed in black letters, not red or green.
If a child often uses the black color in his drawings, you need to observe him for a period of time (at least for a month). Look at his behavior, how he interacts with others. Doesn’t he look avoidant? Doesn’t he suffer from some kind of obsessive fears? And if you see any of these signs, then it is better to consult a specialist, not to diagnose for yourself. If there is nothing alarming in the child’s behavior, then let him use any color, learn to pick contrasting and matching colors, let him experiment and make his own discoveries.
Myth 2: When teaching to draw, no need to show patterns, no need to show how and what to draw, otherwise later the child will only repeat what he has been taught and won’t be able to draw something on his own.
When the child grows up, we show him how to do certain things, and he, having learned, already makes them in his own way. For example, everyone in the school is taught how to write letters. Before writing, we learn to draw out the correct sample point by point. But none of us has the same handwriting!
How can a child know how to do something if he is not taught, and he doesn’t have enough life experience. Let him learn to do it right, and then he will make it in his own way. Indeed, variations can occur only if you know the basics well. This applies also to drawing step by step, as suggested, for example, in the drawing tutorial “How to Draw.”
Let children learn according to sample, and then, after gaining knowledge, they will use their experience, and impose their vision, and create their own form and design. After all, even the great artists learned to draw by copying other masterpieces. It helped them to get a grasp of the drawing technique, material properties and develop their own style in drawing.
Myth 3: Since early childhood it can be understood if a child has a talent for drawing.
Some parents, seeing the success or failure of their kid in drawing, jump to conclusions if their kid is talented or not. But often these conclusions are incorrect. If your 7 – 10 year-old kid draws often and with pleasure, and he is pretty good at drawing, it does not mean that he will continue to draw as readily as now, and his interest in drawing may be weakened or replaced by other interests. Or, conversely, the older gets the child, the more interested he becomes in painting.Time will tell whether a kid will devote his life to drawing, but for now let him draw, since in any case drawing lessons are useful to everyone without exception: they help to properly form the kid’s personality, develop a taste and imagination.
Myth 4: Children are not professionals, so they can use any creative art materials.
Try to paint something beautiful using dried paint and old ragged brush on a piece of paper. It’s unlikely that you’ll be able to create something truly worthwhile. So children, not having good quality art materials, often think that they can not draw well. But if they are given quality paints, brushes corresponding to the arm (for example, a watercolor brush must be soft and must be made of fell of such animals as squirrel or weasel, because they absorb a lot of water and it’s a necessary condition for watercolors; gouache needs tougher brushes, as this paint is quite weighty), and if they are shown how to work with them, how to apply paint and mix colors, any child would be happy to learn and to draw.
Myth 5: Drawing with felt-tip pens or markers is not conducive to the development of any artistic skills, and generally is harmful, especially for the pre-handwriting activities and handwriting preparation.
Of course drawing with felt-tip pens doesn’t require the same pencil pressure as drawing with pencils. And when coloring the picture, you can’t mix colors, like paint, can’t make an image brighter or whiter. But nevertheless, a felt-tip pen is one of the drawing tools, and any restriction in drawing tools limits our expressive abilities. There is a whole technique of drawing with felt-tip pens, and it makes no sense to deprive a child of yet another way of expression. Let your kid try different techniques and find something that is more appealing to him.
Certainly, there are other myths about drawing. And if someone is strongly advising you something, do not hurry to draw conclusions. Think, watch, look … And if your child has painted orange grass, do not rush to tell him that it is not right, that it does not happen. Do not be afraid to experiment and support your child in his experiments, so together you’ll get to the truth.
