Drawing Dragons

There is no better motivation for learning to draw something new than by being asked by a little kid. I babysat a 3 year old boy yesterday and he asked me to draw a dragon. It wasn’t the first time I have gotten this request so yesterday I was prepared.

I haven’t always been prepared though. Everything from hippos to velociraptors have been requested by cute little kids who have utter faith in my ability to make creatures come to life on paper. And since I am always telling them to just give it try and see how it goes, I have to follow my own advice. Sometimes it works out and I get a passable hippo. Other times I have a dinosaur-obsessed little boy critiquing the accuracy of my subpar velociraptor.

In some ways I like it when my drawings do not turn out well. One of the downsides of drawing with children is that sometimes they get discouraged when they compare their own drawing with mine. I have a few well-used lines about how much practice I have had and sometimes that works. Other times they get sulky and it’s time to take a break from coloring. So when my drawings don’t turn out very well I let them critique them. Kids can be brutal critics! But I can take it. I encourage them to tell me not just what I got wrong but how it could be fixed, and then I put my eraser to work. If that isn’t enough we’ll look it up in a book.

As for the dragon, it came out pretty well! The 3 year old was pleased and while he was busy adding extra horns and claws I was free to draw something else.

So I drew another dragon.