I imagine it’s possible to look at this website and say, man, there’s some nutty crap going on here.
It may also be possible to take a look at this ‘nutty crap’ and assume that playing with your kid is just a bunch of nutty crap and serves no purpose.
It’s also possible, I believe, since we’re on the subject, to walk into a Planter’s Peanut Factory bathroom the day after Free Samples For Line Workers Lunch and say, man there is some nutty crap here too.
Somewhere in all of this is something worth exploring.
And with that tremulous opening, let’s talk about drawing.
Yes, you’ve hit the tab that is so much more. The secret door has opened…
And we’re going all the way up in here.
Sometimes I look at all the work Rab has done and I can’t believe it. Holy crap, kid. A few times I have tried to defend homeschool to those who say homeschoolers are all just a bunch of weirdos. In the heydey of Covid for a year or so when people had the courage to look at what schools were, I took a stab at pointing out how pointless and painful education is for kids. All of this became meaningless when I took this picture of Rab on her 13th birthday.
Dang, I said to myself, this stuff worked.
This is a kid alive, wild, free, happy.
Since then I haven’t really cared what anyone thinks. I’ve been too busy enjoying it.
BUT…if you are of a mind to attempt to understand what is happening here, I’m happy to share, and yes as the title of this tab hints, the best way to talk about all of this is to talk about drawing.
That’s right. Drawing.
Taking a pencil and putting it to paper to try to recreate either realistically or impressionistically something you are observing in life.
This was the task set before Rab and I a few summers ago when we went to take her annual homeschool test at a campground in Montana for a week. Let’s do this test and give drawing a go.
We stopped at the now defunct Joanna’s in Coure d’Alene, picked up drawing pads and pencils, found a nice campground for ten bucks a night, enjoyed some burgers and the scenery, and opened up Drawing On the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards.
So Rab, here we are in Montana, this is what we’re gonna do, we’re gonna open this book and go through the exercises and learn to draw and it’s going to be great. What do you say Rab?
Sure Pa!
And just like that we were off.
When you open her book, Betty Edwards does warn you about what may occur when you work through these exercises.
It’s right here, clear as day:
Okay.
So there may be ‘painful objections from the verbal mode’ and you have to switch from ‘L to R mode in your head’ but the ‘mental chatter will cease…’
No big deal.
Hey Rab, there’s an L mode, as in left brain mode, and there’s and R mode, as in right brain mode, and what we’re gonna do is switch from one to the other, sound good?
There’s a switch in my brain?
Yeah sort of. How’s your burger?
At one point while working on her first upside down drawing of her horse Paisley, off of this picture…
Rab’s L mode apparently, as in according to Edwards, her left brain, decided the best way to keep control and stop this stupid drawing crap was to run out of the campground, across the road, and into the woods. Can’t make me draw if I’m long gone buddy.
Well I watched my child run into the forest and saw all of this and calmly recognized as Edwards pointed out that we were having some chatter that hadn’t ceased yet. Wasn’t hard, because the kid was like, no, I’m not doing this, this is stupid, it’s gonna suck and you can’t make me.
Rab!, I shouted across the campground and into the woods, we’re getting R mode up in here kid, and you’re gonna be okay, and before you know it, you’re gonna be having fun.
I don’t want to be in R mode if R mode means doing that dumb crap, I’m done.
That’s just your L mode talking, trying to make sense of everything, don’t listen, Rab.
I’ll listen to whoever I want…you and your R mode are dumb.
Rab listen to me. I’m serious.
What.
Your L mode is an ass.
No they aren’t.
Rab, they are. They’re a giant ass.
You’re a giant ass. Pa.
Rab, do you really want to walk around only using half your brain?
Maybe.
She was stuttering, I knew I had her.
Zombies do that, Rab. Zombies.
And with that, and other inspirational words such as those, she clopped back to the table and we were in.
She had a lot to say about the things that weren’t ‘right’ with her first drawing, but she also couldn’t help but admit this was a better drawing than she ever thought she could do, and that yes, she got there by letting go, having a good time, and just going ‘line by line’.
Ah, drawing.
Ah, line by line.
Ah, growth and doing stuff and trying and failing and dreaming and having the guts to live and try and fail.
Ah, there we go.
Line by line.
That’s what we’re talking about up in here.
Line by line…yes, reminds me of a poem I once heard on a starless night, deep in the wilderness next to a burned out vw camper van…
All right, get to the point please bub.
What’s going on in learning to draw is accepting relinquishing control to live in the moment and try something even though you might fail.
Reread that sentence — learning to draw is accepting relinquishing control to live in the moment and try something even though you might fail.
Ask yourself what kind of life a person might live if they’re down with that, and what kind of life a person might live if they’re not.
Right.
Kind of a big deal.
In fact, it turns out in teaching Rab to go line by line and let go I was in a fight against all the dark ugly voices that had accumulated in Rab’s ‘educational’ life up to that point. Sure, it was summer, and it was a nice campground, and we were eating burgers and having fun — but it was also a knock down drag out battle between playing and goofing and having fun and getting after it and trying new things versus all of those voices who said she couldn’t and shouldn’t and it is better to not try than fail.
Kind of a big thing.
Like, sort of, the whole shooting match.
At least as far as I am concerned. But that’s because my goal for my daughter is for her to be flipped on and excited about life, to have fun dreaming and going after goals that are her own, while also being totally curious about what else is out there and knowing she can find a way to get it done.
I’m happy to report that during that summer the good guys won. She also crushed her homeschool test, too. ‘Ain’t no thing but a chicken wing,’ as Dr. Phil says.
That summer, confronted with an R mode and an L mode and nowhere to run but the forest and maybe perhaps some woodland friends, a menagerie of L mode kids hiding from their hippidy-dippity parents and arguing over the right way to build a treehouse, Rab instead turned her back on all of that, re-approached her burger and drawing pad, and learned to let go. She learned to let herself have fun in the moment and give up control. She learned there is more to her and there is more she can do, that all that fixed crap can step off a bit and things can be just fine.
These days Rab uses a calligraphy pen and ink to draw with her left hand, just because she wants to. She did all the illustrations for the recently released Sparks in Your Eyes! and is also doing all the illustrations for Stories from the Beartooths, an upcoming Looseleaf release.
She’s done all this work because she’s wanted to.
Beyond drawing, what Rab ultimately learned was that she can trust in the process.
And when you’re in the process, the left brain and the right brain — or however you want to think about it — can combine and combine with others and then you enter what we like to call the spiral of stoke.
Amen to that.
Let’s go.