I was visiting with Ashley Saturday evening and we had been just sort of doing nothing, just talking and joking. She had had a stressful day and began doodling with pen and paper. I learnt that she does that sometimes as a stress reliever, as I use writing for the same thing.
Anyway, she was just doing caricatures and I suggested that she draw the image of her cat, Bella. She was in a silly mood by then and drew a highly stylized image, after the fold.
Here is the sketch that she drew. The kicker is that she went from a blank piece of paper to the completed sketch in under four minutes. It would take me twice that long to TRACE that picture.
She knew that this was not representative of her better work, so she decided to draw an imaginary plant. Once again, it took her less than four minutes to draw this, with only an imaginary image in her brain from which to work.
I think that this is remarkable. Imagine if she had taken ten or 15 minutes to draw it carefully! This was just a fast sketch, and I could not come close to anything like it to save me, except to trace it.
That gave me an idea. I went outside and cut a small piece of Euonymus
vine that is just now setting seed (the decorative part of that plant is the seed pod, white in this specimen, and the highly colored drupes (seed coats), crimson in this specimen. Here is a picture of the actual specimen. I took it tonight, so the leaves are a bit dried out compared to Saturday.
I apologize for the blur in the picture; my camera was running out of battery and I had only one shot. Here is her rendition of it, once again in only about four minutes, and that included studying it long enough to get its image into her mind's eye.
Is it just me, because I am so fond of her (and not draw a straight line without a ruler), or does she really have artistic talent? I think that it is more or the latter, but the former is always a possibility. You have to remember that all three of these sketches were completed in 12 minutes or probably even less.
If I am correct, she may have real career possibilities in commercial artwork, not to mention her own creations. I know that in many cases, particularly in botany, that line drawings are easier than photographs to emphasize the unique points that separate one species from another, closely related, one.
I left her attributes on the drawings, so the copyrights to them belong to her. Please let me know your thoughts about the quality of her work. I think that it is remarkably good, especially considering how fast she did them, just sitting on the couch, with a throwaway ball point pen, plain printer paper, and not the best of lighting.
Oh, I did not mention that she has never had any kind of a formal art class, so what she did was innate to her, not learnt. Imagine if she were to take a couple of classes! On the other hand, sometimes formal instruction restricts the flow of raw talent, so that might be self defeating. I just wish that I could draw half that well.
What do you think?
Warmest regards,
Doc