While drawing in a toned paper sketchbook, which she had carefully selected for its nice middle ground for adding highlights as well as darks, illustrator Mica Angela Henrdicks was reminded by her 4-year old daughter that kids always want to play with grown-ups’ toys.
She reluctantly acquiesced, and the 4-year old proceeded to “finish” a face her mother had drawn by adding a body, a dinosaur body, of course, which made it all the more perfect, and Hendricks was so impressed with the results that she began to do a series of faces, encouraging her daughter to add bodies, and then occasionally going back in with a bit of color in acrylics.
You can read Hendricks’ article about the series on her blog, and see more of them on her Society6 page. You can see Mica Angela Henrdicks’ professional work here.
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I thought about doing this when my kids were younger. i was always afraid that people would say, “Just let the kid do it, it’s so much better without you messing it up.” Dave DeVries does an interesting version of this too doesn’t he.
This is fun and I agree with Bill, whenever I did similar collabs with kids I always felt upstaged by them, I was trying too hard.
We did those tri-fold versions of drawings.
Charley did a post on Dave Devries here and that too was cool.
Here’s my article on Dave DeVries’ Monster Engine, in which an accomplished adult artist does his interpretations of kids’ drawings of monsters.
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”
— Pablo Picasso
Great quote, Daniel. Thanks. Reminds me of a related one:
From Howard Ikemoto:
When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college — that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared back at me, incredulous, and said, “You mean they forget?”
Great post!
Regarding the Picasso quote it’s true, I’ve always been amazed at the fact that pretty much all kids can draw and feel a good level of passion for it as the means of expression this art is, but somehow there is a moment, a certain age in which most of them just stop. I always thought it is inherent to the human being to grow up, mature, learn, basically evolve… but, “change”? It is not that we should somehow keep inside that little child we once were, we are in fact that child, only a naturally evolved and more experienced version of him/her. Anyway, I think I’ll sleep better tonight :)
It is really surprising how well the two styles go together. I’m inspired….
Howards Ikemoto’s quote…perfect.