Drawing with the boy

I've written a fair bit about art and craft from a female point of view but one thing that bothered me a little was how boys can feel excluded.

I couldn't help but notice that many of the art and design activities for children were a bit girly. It would be a shame if boys were excluded from being creative because the activities we give them aren't engaging them.

Luckily for me, I stumbled across a solution. When I started to work on my drawing about six months ago, the style that appealed to me was a graphic, almost cartoony one. This is perfect for my seven year old son and soon we were drawing together.

Here's one of his drawings:

7yo has been drawing scenes from #doctorwho

A post shared by Helen Lindop (@helenlindop) on Mar 8, 2017 at 12:18am PST

And here's one we worked on together (I drew the dalek, he coloured it in.)

I drew a dalek and my 7 year old coloured it in. #drwho #whovians #dalek

A post shared by Helen Lindop (@helenlindop) on Apr 26, 2017 at 11:45pm PDT

Yes, Dr Who features a lot in his art work! (There's a lot of Star Wars, too). His drawing has improved lots over the last few months, in fact a few weeks ago his entry won a drawing competition and the prize is to paint his design on the wall of our local food bank. Very proud mum.

I hope that having an activity we can sit down and share will be a useful conversation opener over the coming years, too. I'm sure there will be times when we need to talk and it might not be easy to get started.

By the way, if you're looking for a craft activity for boys, these pipe cleaner ninjas are brilliant. (Girls love them too.)

My 21 Day Drawing Challenge

I enjoyed Von Glitschka's 5 day drawing challenge so much that I decided to take his 21 day drawing challenge, too.

It didn't seem like a big thing at first - after all it was only about fifteen minutes a day over the Christmas period. But I learned loads in that time. It really did show the power of doing something every day.

I posted my drawings on Instagram, I'll add a few in this post:

21 day draw day 2 - continuous line drawing. The first time I've tried it, so not 100% sure I understood it when I drew this. (I Googled it afterwards so I have a better idea now!) #draw21days

A post shared by Helen Lindop (@helenlindop) on Dec 23, 2016 at 3:00am PST

21 Day Draw : day 7 - draw something you're passionate about. I was given a new book on drawing for Christmas by my kids so I really wanted to try one of the exercises in that. The lettering in the banner is because (like most people, I think) I've had enough of 2016 and I'm ready to move on now. Bring on 2017! #draw21days #rose #newyear #newyear2017 #howtodrawcoolstuff

A post shared by Helen Lindop (@helenlindop) on Dec 28, 2016 at 12:59am PST

Some drawings went well and I was pleased with the result, others I found really tough and I had to tackle them a few times to get a half-decent result. Others I totally misunderstood but even then I learned a lot about how I made assumptions about what was being asked!

21 Day Drawing challenge day 18 - draw a monster on cardboard. Good fun, this one. #draw21days

A post shared by Helen Lindop (@helenlindop) on Jan 11, 2017 at 1:07pm PST

21 Day drawing challenge - day 14. Reality is boring, make this photo more interesting. Now I've looked at the solution I think I totally misunderstood this challenge but I had fun with it anyway so I'm not worried! #draw21days

A post shared by Helen Lindop (@helenlindop) on Jan 7, 2017 at 2:55am PST

One of the best things to come from this drawing challenge was that my children were so curious about it that they joined in. So not only did they learn a thing or two about drawing, the three of us had some pleasant drawing sessions together over the Christmas holidays.

Back last Autumn I decided to improve my drawing because it's a basic skill that wiould give me lots of options in any art or craft I chose to do in future. But it's taught me so much more than I ever expected. Watch this space, things could get interesting!

It's looking a little sketchy

Back when I was making my felt pictures for the Weaving narratives project I thought that it would be good to improve my drawing. I wanted to go beyond using photographs and begin drawing up my own designs.

I already had an account at Lynda.com, so that was the natural first place to look for tutorials. I took Von Glitska's 5 Day Draw course where you...well... get drawing prompts five days in a row. Simple really! Part of the course was to post your drawing on social media, so that's what I did.

My first few weren't that inspiring but after a few days I lightened up and had some fun with it:

#5daydraw light and dark shading, day 3

A photo posted by Helen Lindop (@helenlindop) on Sep 12, 2016 at 1:51pm PDT

#5daydraw drawing with shapes instead of lines. Giraffe in a car.

A photo posted by Helen Lindop (@helenlindop) on Sep 15, 2016 at 1:37am PDT

I really like Von Glitska's work and he said one thing in the course that stood out for me. I'm paraphrasing a bit but it was something like 'don't worry about drawing something photo-realistic. If clients wanted that then they'd use a photo.' (I don't have art or design clients, but it was a lightbulb moment anyway).

In art lessons at school I felt I was encouraged to draw what was there in front of me in detail. Which I guess has its place but is pretty boring! So now I don't have to do that it's opened up lots of possibilities...