Bright Eyes

Saturday, 7th October, 2006

page 3 of 4

When children are looking diffident about how to start, I ask them what they like drawing. One boy said he'd like to draw a squirrel but didn't know how, so I took him and his two brothers through the process step by step, from bright eyes to bushy tail (right).

As we're in the main hall today we can't splash about with inks and pvc glue as we did last time but the conté crayons add another dimension to the drawings. I wish I could show you the boy's version of the squirrel which turned out well despite him feeling that he'd got it all wrong at the halfway stage.

I noticed when I started showing them how to draw a rabbit that one of the brothers started at right-hand side of the page; he was left-handed. For me and other right-handers it's always easiest to draw an animal that's facing left. Not so easy to have it facing the other way.