Draw, yeh Varmint!

In one classic old west Bugs Bunny cartoon, Yosemite Sam, always in need of anger management, fingers his holsters and demands that Bugs draw, to which, in true Bugs style, he takes out paper and pen and whips out a competent sketch. Sam then proceeds to attempt the same but, tongue out in belabored concentration, keeps trying then erasing, trying then erasing, until the inevitable explosion of temper occurs. It's a funny bit because besides being a play on words, there's the meta-level idea of a cartoonist drawing someone who can't draw. Not to mention, it plays into our own frustrations of attempting the same.

I mentioned in the last blog about children just naturally drawing, scribbling, dabbling in fingerpaints, embracing their Crayola time, without worrying about the results. It was all in the process. But as we know, there's that moment in our growth where we become grounded in reality. We see objects in more complexity so we want our drawings to look like that object. We're not happy anymore with lollipop trees and stick figures. We see that faces are more than two dots and a curved line in a balloon head and so the frustration sets in when our drawing of Mom has lop-sided eyes, a snout nose, and a leering set of teeth. Instead of declaring "Look Mom, I'm the next Picasso. Alert the media!" we toss it away in frustration.
I feel the truly great art teachers are those that, given a decent school budget and lots of support for artistic development, work with pre-adolescents through this tough transition, not only with teaching handy skills that enable them to draw what they see, but also to draw what they don't see. Design, color, abstraction, impression, collage, decoration, even collective projects, allow children to experience art at more than just the level of realism. This is when imagination can soar. Or it can die on the vine with endless exercises in coloring inside the lines.
Next time I feel frustration with a piece of art, or just feel my creativity is dried up, I'll try to banish my inner Yosemite Sam before my head explodes, and let that subversive, free spirit Bugs loose. Besides, he loves to dress in drag and he's also a great dancer.