Drawing

I keep lots of Ella's artworks, but as she does more and more of it at school and daycare, I must say that some of them don't even get a proper look but end up straight in the recycling. I'm talking about tissue boxes with paddle pop sticks glued to them or pages with a couple of lines of paint in a non-descript colour.

But I love Ella's drawings. And especially her drawings of animals. The detail in them is quite striking. Without anyone showing her how to draw these, she has a talent for depicting the one or two characteristics that make them immediately recognisable. Which to be honest, is already more than I manage to achieve usually.

Like the jelly fish in this one. (And the cat is probably better than the ones I draw!)


The duck is also a classic example. I adore it's simplicity and those big feet.



Note the "fairy mermaids" in the above pictures. They used to resemble her barbie mermaid when she started copying that onto paper which I thought was rather clever. But I'll leave it up to your imagination to decide what these more stylised versions she tends to draw these days resemble.

The bat (the finished one) would be amongst my faves too. I doubt she's ever seen a picture of a bat, but this has such a cartoon quality about it. This is the bookmark she made for when we read her chapter books every night. There are no bats in the book...



But this is my absolute favourite! I found it in her pigeon hole at daycare and my reaction was (quite genuine too): "Oh, what beautiful cats!" To which she responded immediately: "Mu-um! They're not cats! They're flying foxes!" after which she pointed out the tiny wings on their necks or backs. Hahaha! I love their fluffy feet too. They're delightfully surreal.



As she has always loved drawing, I have bought books on teaching kids how to draw. It explains step by step how to draw a cat, a horse, a boat... But I am very reluctant to use them as I am enjoying this phase of her drawing way too much and don't want it to ever change!