I need some art experts and those of you with a command of child development to take a look at these two pictures. They were both drawn by Andrew (Age 5 1/2) and are quite typical of his drawings. The top one is Dumbo. Two ears flank the head (with trunk) and a hat floats on top. The bottom drawing is a pumpkin. It was drawn in sections from left to right and then the stem in the middle was added. The spiraling horizontal pattern is Andrew coloring the complete pumpkin orange. What I would love some insight into is the fact that when Andrew draws, he builds his compositions from seperate parts and nothing ever touches. His pumpkin isn't a round object with stripes, but strips of orange which have a kind of round shape when together. Dumbo is the same. Ears, head, hat all seperate.
There is an artist by the name of David Hockney who does some fascinating colage like art. Often photographing a scene many times and piling the photos up to represent the feel of the scene, but without any of the connection we are used to seeing. I have linked to a piece of his of a chess match. Here is an old woman. Here is a chair. A Man. and a Tree.
Many autistic adults have compared the photomontages of David Hockney with the way in which they see the world. Tiny slices of data stitched together in a way which only sort of represented the actual subject of comprehension. One autistic artist consistantly drew people with eyes that look straight out of the canvas and mouths on the sides of their heads. The reason was that he coldn't see the mouth and the eyes at the same time. To view a face required several snap shots which had to be merged in the brain later. A person looking at you one moment would be looking away when the mouth was viewed a moment later so as to appear that the mouth was on the side of the head.
The question that I have is this: do the art and development folks out there think that Andrew's drawings of things as seperate and non connected components look to you like he is unable to view the whole of a scene in order to draw it correctly? Or, does his artwork look like the drawings of a five and a half year old who doesn't care about realism and is having a lot of fun with a pencil or crayon? Thoughts? Thanks.
6 comments:
Well, guys...I'm certainly no expert but I can give you my observation based on what I've seen in respect to other children Andrew's age. As far as I can remember, with my kindergarten students at CDS and with Conner, this type of drawing is not typically what I would see. I would be inclined to think that he is analyzing the object in parts, thus the drawing in the same way. Most children get caught up in the whole and miss a lot of detail in the process...in short, drawing from life is difficult for a lot of children, especially children at Andrew's age. The fact that Andrew will sit down and draw what he sees, be it in parts or as a whole, I would think to be beyond what I see from many young "artists." I don't know exactly how he is seeing the object - maybe you could try putting some different examples in front of him, some drawings that you do or some manipulated photos that give more or less detail and see what he comes up with after looking at each example. One thing is for sure...he's definitly having fun with his crayons...be it haphazard or his way of communicating how he is seeing something, children love to make art and love to see their art displayed.
Sorry...it's me again...I thought of something as I was heading up...this may sound like a silly question, but, does Andrew look at his paper when he is drawing? The reason I ask is his drawings remind me of an exercise I do with my beginning drawing students called blind contour line drawing. Basically, the exercise is to not look at your paper while you draw - this process forces you to look at what you are drawing and rely on what you see rather than what you know. His pumpkin could be a drawing from one of my intro classes. Anyway, not really sure what you could do with that. Just wanted to add it.
Thanks Robyn!
Andrew does look at the page while drawing. And everything that he is drawing is from memory. There was no pumpkin in view as he was doing his work. Likewise, the drawing of Dumbo was done from the memory of a drawing of Elaina's.
-david
He has a very vivid memory, then. That's Andrew, though. He can recall lines from movies, songs, etc. verbatem...correct? Looks like he can do the same visually.
That's right.
Memory has always been stellar. I still wonder if memory as he experiences it matches the way we experience the world or if it's in slices which have little relation to one another.
I love Andrew’s drawings. They seem "elemental." One thing I am sure of about autism is that folks with autism are amazingly elemental in their approach to life.
Jackson, a young man with autism who I loved dearly and worked with for five years, was elemental. He could spot a late registration on any car. And, if he noticed that your tags “were up,” he would write the date and year of your expired license plate sticker on a little piece of paper that looked a lot like a license plate sticker, and then he would come up to you with his arm outstretched and his head tucked sharply into his chest. And, as soon as you grabbed the paper, he would run over and stand next to your vehicle. He would never talk to you but it was clear that there was an element of life that he wanted to communicate about and it really mattered to him. It was this element of life that he would just totally focus upon. Did Jackson not see my whole car, or did he analyze it into little pieces? I do not know. I do know that he was very elemental.
Karen an autistic woman, who I used to work with at a group home in the 1980’s was elemental. She could find loose change in almost any environment. When I used to take Karen to the 7-11, she would often return with more money than she spent. There was this element of life that fascinated her and her ability to focus on it was uncanny.
Scott was elemental. He loved birthdays. He could tell you the day you were born, like on a Monday or Tuesday in 1960-whatever. He knew every famous person's birthday. It was so awesome to see him focus in on a birthday and it was totally elemental.
It seems like Andrew really shares this. His drawings seem very elemental to me. By the way, is elemental even a word?
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