The Impressionist

Kiernan gave me a little lesson in art today.

We were goofing around after his nap, reading my new Calvin and Hobbes book (a gift from my sister Hope). After many pages of this book, The Days Are Just Packed, I shifted us to a new activity, suggesting we draw on Kiernan's Doodle Pro while we played with his Planet Heroes figures. The Doodle Pro--pictured above--is this great drawing board that you write on with a magnetic stylus, and which you can wipe clean with the flip of a lever. It's great.

So we got to work playing with the Planet Heroes, and out of nowhere I decided to draw one of them. Now let me make one thing clear...I cannot draw. Really, I'm terrible. I have always wanted to be able to draw. Oh well. That's okay. I can do other stuff. I can, however, copy things. And if have one of Kiernan's Planet Heroes close by, I can make an adequate copy-drawing of it. It looks demented and sad, but it looks okay. And by 'okay', I mean Kiernan can identify which character I'm attempting to draw.

So I tried draw the Planet Hero Gustus. He's the one from the planet Jupiter, and one of Kiernan's newest acquisitions. I did a pretty good job, with help from Kiernan. We had a fun time doing it.

After that, Kiernan asked me to draw another of his Planet Heroes. I asked him to draw something instead. He demured. I asked again, this time in the voice of Yuri, the Planet Hero of the planet Uranus (a voice that is a combination of Borat and Dracula), and this time he took the little Doodle Pro magnetic stylus and set to work drawing.

He started drawing the Planet Heroes, but instead of trying to draw them literally, as I do, he just drew them as his memory dictated he should. That is to say, when I try to draw Gustus, I take the Gustus figure and put it next to the Doodle Pro and try to copy it line for line. When Kiernan draws Gustus, he just draws a figure then adds flourishes that suggest what Gustus is about. He instinctively picks out a characteristic and highlights that characteristic, and doesn't really worry about nailing down all the details. And the cool thing is, even if I don't know what he's going for, his drawing has enough of the essence that I get it. He draws an impression of what that figure is, and that communicates it.

He inherently gets how to communicate through his drawings, something I have never really gotten.

Cool.

[Picture Note: Kiernan draws a picture of the planets. The Planet Heroes look on as he does so. From Left to Right they are, Gustus from Jupiter, Digger from Mars, Yuri from Uranus, Ace from Earth, Zip from Mercury, and Dazzle from Venus.]