Cats and Faces and Horses and Airplanes

Catlin: From The Shadow People, by Bevie James

I would very much like to draw. For some, drawing has become easy. For people like me it's quite intimidating.

A couple of years ago I attended a workshop the company I was working for put on for its employees. The focus of the workshop eludes my memory, but I do recall an exercise we did. (I've posted about this before on A Voice in the Wind.) We were given a blank sheet of paper and told to partition it into four equal rectangles. In the top left corner we were told to use our dominant hand and draw a house. Next, using the opposite hand, and in the upper right corner, draw a picture of a horse. Step 3 was in the lower left corner. Again, using your dominant hand - but with your eyes closed - draw a picture of an airplane. Finally, in the lower right hand corner, using the other hand - again, eyes closed - draw a picture of a cat.

The moderator then told us what he observed.

Few people were inclined to show others their house picture, but kind of willing to show their horse drawing. Even more showed their airplane, and nearly everyone wanted to share their cat picture. Then he told us about a study which was done some place. (Some group got paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to do this study, I'm sure.)

Questioners went to day care centers and asked four- and five-year-old children, "How many of you can draw a cat?" One hundred percent of the children said they could. I believe the children even were eagerly willing to provide proof. Next, the questioners went to several colleges and universities and asked the same question of young adults. Very, very few said they could draw a cat.

The point was, of course, that we are taught, and we quickly learn, what we can't do. People look at our early efforts and feel the obligation to point out to us that we aren't any good at whatever it is we're trying to do. For most of us it doesn't take to many of these admonitions before we realize we can't do that.

So what was different with the adults who still believed they could draw a cat? Were their first efforts just that good, and so they weren't given the negative critiques? I doubt it. Were they praised for their effort and progress instead of discouraged? Possibly. In some cases I believe so. Or were they just to stubborn/stupid to listen to the comments and proceeded along their merry way, trying and trying and trying, and improving, improving, improving? I think there was some of this, too.

Unfortunately for me, I didn't get the praises for early efforts in drawing. What is more, I was too stupid to be stupid, and not quite stubborn enough to ignore the comments I got. So I put my drawing aside and did other things.

Now, I am well past the early years of my life and I don't draw a heck of a lot better now than I did then. Why not? I haven't been practicing. What a shame. Well, I'm going to try practicing now. I have illustrations I want drawn for my stories, and I can't afford to commission other artists to do the work.

I'm going to begin by trying to draw Catlin, a character from Shadow People, a novel I finished in mid-September. That's Catlin up at the top. But before you go praising me for an early effort I have to confess that is NOT a free hand drawing up there. What I did was search Google Images for a picture of my impression of a beautiful woman. I found one. Downloaded it. Printed it. Put a blank sheet of paper on top of it. Paper-clipped the two sheets together. Walked to the sliding doors. Put the papers against the glass, blank side toward me. Traced the image.

So, before you discourage me on my ability to trace, let me remind you that that isn't very nice. [smiles]

I DO intend to draw Catlin free hand. And in the near future, I hope. But I wanted to get a "feel" for drawing the face. I'm going to work at it - between my writing assignments. Because you know what?

I CAN draw a cat!