Sunday 7 September 2014

Drawing from within, and writing by drawing..

Bebu has been drawing for a while now.. This was my last post on her drawings..

She has been steadily helping herself to printer paper, walls, newspaper bits, envelopes from mail that comes in, any scrap paper around the house to draw her drawings..

She hasn't had any actual instruction on how to draw.. Never really attended a drawing class or been provided any feedback on how things should or shouldn't look.  Except for of course, our continued delight in that she enjoys drawing for drawings sake..

Her drawings come from within, details getting added bit by bit to her creations. From just simple dots for eyes and a curve for a smile, her figures have started to get more details, eyeballs for eyes, glasses, feet, hands, bodies, hair etc etc..Her drawings are like a reflection of her observations of the details in her world. She has her own unique way of representing these observations on paper..

She also delights in drawing to gift. She has made a couple of cards for friends as birthday gifts, and of course surprises us with art work as "presents" on a daily basis!

Somewhere along the line, the drawing led to writing.. It started with her wanting to know how to add her own name to her drawings..She can now write many letters of the alphabet in a way of drawing them out.. She draws every letter, copying the shape from a letter that might be present in her surroundings! Letters she finds are around her everywhere: the laptop key board, books in the house, letters on her toys.. If she wants to write a letter she looks for the one she wants, finds it and copies it out by drawing the shape.. Her recollection of letters has been one that she has figured out for herself..The last picture had her write out the word "zoo" which she said she remembered the spelling of from seeing it on tv..

Her internal process of learning to decode print has been her own unique process, one devoid of any phonics instruction or spelling instruction.. She "knows" it when she knows it and in the meantime figures it out by asking, watching, looking and listening..her own unique internal construct of how each shape combination matches up with sounds that make up the words that she knows...whenever she feels the need to figure it out.. mostly inspired to put down names of her recipients of her gifts..She was determined to write every child's name by herself on her birthday invitation this year with help from Hubs on each of their spellings..

It's been a unique process and learning for us as a family by the gifts of Bebu's drawings- her drawings from within and her writing by drawing..




"Happy Sick"- August of this year

Her cousin Sid under the Sun.. 

Rainbow

A recurring favorite- flowers with faces!

A girl with hair and body and the one eyed person!

Grandma with her bindi..


A birthday card with all the members of our family!The three eyed guy is Hubs:)


A zoo picture with children visiting a monkey family and the lion..


2 comments:

  1. Lovely :-) Glad to know that you did not correct her drawings or provide inputs on how to draw eyes, nose etc. Kids learn well, and definitely better than what we can teach them, if and when allowed to try and do it themselves in their own unique way. My daughter does the same and it improves every single day. I'm proud of her, I've never taught her to draw, and yes she doesn't draw and paint for the competitions coz she doesn't like to practice the same picture again and again :-) But we invariably get "gifted" almost every single hour, everyday with new innovative drawings :-) Continue the good work of not interfering with her drawings

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    1. Thanks Deepa for your comment! It's great to hear about your daughters love for creating art as well..Yes! I can relate to joy of getting "gifted"!:)

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