Kid Art

Sagan is four years old. He has been painting on canvass for a couple of years, so I am a little annoyed that "My Kid Could Paint That" is coming out just as we are taking off with our new project. I don't want our endeavor to be mistaken for an attempt to do whatever it is that Marla Olmstead's family is having her do. Whatever.

Here are some of Sagan's early works, done when he was just shy of three:












While we are on the subject of the Olmstead family, however, although I haven't seen the movie I believe that the paintings my son has done are the kind of thing that a two year old produces. Mia Fineman, writing for Slate magazine, gives the biolerplate explanation for children's creativity: Like Marla, elephants approach a blank canvas with a blithe lack of inhibition and no preconceived idea of what a painting is supposed to look like. What matters to them is the process: the friction of the brush against the surface of the canvas, the creamy viscosity of the paint, and the fine-motor activity involved in making different kinds of marks, from long sweeping strokes to quick rhythmic dabs and slithery caresses.

*Yawn*

I know all about it. And at two the painting come out looking like the ones above. I prepped the canvasses for him with a color wash, gold or lavender or something kind of neutral, because I knew he would leave a lot of white space. Two year olds dab, and this is what dabbing looks like. They enjoy making marks.

Four year olds smear. They want to mush the paint over every inch of the surface they are painting, but they don't care as much about forms. The results look like this:





I think I can tell the difference between Jackson Pollack and Sagan. The difference is in the quality of materials and the composition of the piece. Sagan's art is amazing (as are his jokes, his blue eyes, and everything else about him), but I don't think a kid can paint like an adult any more than an adult can paint like a kid. It's more than just not knowing what art is "supposed" to look like. I think it is a different relationship with the canvass that an adult can't recapture.