The Artist

When Shiloh and I draw together, we both have paper and pencils and draw the same thing at the same time. This is an example of a parallel activity, and is meant to underscore imitation and also to spark initiative.

On Wednesday, we were both drawing whales. Up to this point, Shiloh hasn't known exactly how to go about drawing things he's thinking of (self-expression isn't exactly his forte), so he usually just scribbles.

I didn't expect this day to be much different, so I was drawing and commenting aloud about what I was drawing and not paying a whole lot of attention to what Shiloh was doing. "Now I'm drawing the nose like this," I said, "And now the flippers and oh! He needs a tail."

When I was finished I looked over at his drawing and was delighted to see this:

Note the obvious nose (up-and-down strokes on the left), flippers (v-shaped lines on the bottom) and tail (the long streak going up and off to the right). The scribbles closer to the middle are probably his attempt to make an eye (he's not so good at making dots). I added an eye there, and a mouth, but the rest is entirely his. Interestingly, his whale was positioned almost identically on the page to mine.