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Picture This: The Near-Sighted Monkey Book
The creative-drawing companion to the acclaimed and bestselling
What It Is
Lynda Barry single-handedly created a literary genre all her own, the graphic memoir/how-to, otherwise known as the bestselling, the acclaimed, but most important, the adored and the inspirational What It Is. The R. R. Donnelley and Eisner Award–winning book posed, explored, and answered the question: "Do you wish you could write?" Now with Picture This, Barry asks: "Do you wish you could draw?" It features the return of Barry's most beloved character, Marlys, and introduces a new one, the Near-Sighted Monkey. LikeWhat It Is, Picture This is an inspirational, take-home extension of Barry's traveling, continually sold-out, and sought-after workshop, "Writing the Unthinkable."
Lynda Barry single-handedly created a literary genre all her own, the graphic memoir/how-to, otherwise known as the bestselling, the acclaimed, but most important, the adored and the inspirational What It Is. The R. R. Donnelley and Eisner Award–winning book posed, explored, and answered the question: "Do you wish you could write?" Now with Picture This, Barry asks: "Do you wish you could draw?" It features the return of Barry's most beloved character, Marlys, and introduces a new one, the Near-Sighted Monkey. LikeWhat It Is, Picture This is an inspirational, take-home extension of Barry's traveling, continually sold-out, and sought-after workshop, "Writing the Unthinkable."
204 pages, Hardcover
First published March 3, 2009
32 people are currently reading
1403 people want to read
About the author
Lynda Barry
45 books1,145 followersLynda Barry is an American cartoonist and author, perhaps best known for her weekly comic strip Ernie Pook's Comeek.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 181 reviews
April 23, 2011
A glance at Linda Barry’s “The Near-Sighted Money Book, Picture This” would make you think that it’s a parody of a kid’s how-to-draw manual. On the cover is this pitch: “Do you wish you could draw? Take art lessons from a monkey!’ It’s the kind of nonsense we’ve come to expect from Barry, whose wacky comics have made her one of the most popular alt-illustrators of recent decades. But take a closer look at “Picture This” and you see some surprising stuff: as much quirky fun as it offers, it also offers some serious insight into the aesthetic of an accomplished, often brilliant artist.
Using her usual stable of weird characters, especially the massively-freckled, dorky-eyed Marlys and Arna, Barry experiments with various approaches to making art. The thematic center of this book is experiment: how does an artist approach the challenges of rendering her world? Yes, Barry’s world is out-there, but it’s not out-there without some trial and error and numerous experiments to make it out-there in just the right way. The lesson of Barry’s how-to manual is just this: you’ve got to take risks, you’ve got to try and try again to get it right. Read her notes and scribbles on these pages and you’ll find such statements as, “You have to be willing to spend time making things for no known reason” and “Why do we lose focus? Do we lose course? Discourage. Stick it out.” This book really is a how-to – it really does offer sound advice and insight.
I didn’t realize this until I spent time with the book (I’ve been keeping it in the bathroom). I assume it was just a visual romp. As a visual romp, it was okay, fine, sometimes fun. But then I looked more closely. Wait, what’s this? It’s Barry showing two approaches to collage: one with torn bits of paper, another with cut bits of paper. And then there’s this challenge: “Can you color a picture if you only have one color? It’s a good thing to find out.” And so Barry finds out, using only brown, which she layers and shades to varying effects, ultimately creating a highly nuanced illustration of “beach ball Marlys.” Then she tries it with other variations, just black and gray, then black gray, red and yellow. The pleasure here is the reader’s examination (and realization) of how an artist can work with, and even celebrate, certain limits (in this case, a limited palette).
Some illustrations seem gratuitous additions to the book, probably pulled from Barry’s many notebooks. But, in the main, the book works splendidly as a tour de force of an artist’s approach to her various media, which, for Barry, is mostly pen, ink, and water color, though she does experiment with collages that contain newsprint, cotton balls, grade-school composition paper, and type-written notes, among other things. All of it is whimsical and some of it is challenging – meaning that you have to give it some time to settle into your mind. At bottom, the appeal of “Picture This” is its honesty. As playful as Barry may be, she seems to be in earnest here, offering both advice and admissions of ignorance: “It is funny to think of the character in my comics as being mine. I didn’t plan their arrival. … I don’t know why I drew them again at first, but they quickly took over my comic strip.” As a writer, I most appreciate her many instances of encouragement – which apply to all artists: “The worst thing I can do when I’m stuck is to start thinking and stop moving my hands.” This is same advice I offer to my writing students: You’ve got to keep going. Barry shows how in this great book.
Using her usual stable of weird characters, especially the massively-freckled, dorky-eyed Marlys and Arna, Barry experiments with various approaches to making art. The thematic center of this book is experiment: how does an artist approach the challenges of rendering her world? Yes, Barry’s world is out-there, but it’s not out-there without some trial and error and numerous experiments to make it out-there in just the right way. The lesson of Barry’s how-to manual is just this: you’ve got to take risks, you’ve got to try and try again to get it right. Read her notes and scribbles on these pages and you’ll find such statements as, “You have to be willing to spend time making things for no known reason” and “Why do we lose focus? Do we lose course? Discourage. Stick it out.” This book really is a how-to – it really does offer sound advice and insight.
I didn’t realize this until I spent time with the book (I’ve been keeping it in the bathroom). I assume it was just a visual romp. As a visual romp, it was okay, fine, sometimes fun. But then I looked more closely. Wait, what’s this? It’s Barry showing two approaches to collage: one with torn bits of paper, another with cut bits of paper. And then there’s this challenge: “Can you color a picture if you only have one color? It’s a good thing to find out.” And so Barry finds out, using only brown, which she layers and shades to varying effects, ultimately creating a highly nuanced illustration of “beach ball Marlys.” Then she tries it with other variations, just black and gray, then black gray, red and yellow. The pleasure here is the reader’s examination (and realization) of how an artist can work with, and even celebrate, certain limits (in this case, a limited palette).
Some illustrations seem gratuitous additions to the book, probably pulled from Barry’s many notebooks. But, in the main, the book works splendidly as a tour de force of an artist’s approach to her various media, which, for Barry, is mostly pen, ink, and water color, though she does experiment with collages that contain newsprint, cotton balls, grade-school composition paper, and type-written notes, among other things. All of it is whimsical and some of it is challenging – meaning that you have to give it some time to settle into your mind. At bottom, the appeal of “Picture This” is its honesty. As playful as Barry may be, she seems to be in earnest here, offering both advice and admissions of ignorance: “It is funny to think of the character in my comics as being mine. I didn’t plan their arrival. … I don’t know why I drew them again at first, but they quickly took over my comic strip.” As a writer, I most appreciate her many instances of encouragement – which apply to all artists: “The worst thing I can do when I’m stuck is to start thinking and stop moving my hands.” This is same advice I offer to my writing students: You’ve got to keep going. Barry shows how in this great book.
January 13, 2023
From the cover:
"DO YOU
WISH YOU
COULD
DRAW?"
"TAKE ART
LESSONS
FROM A
MONKEY!"
The caps and exclamation point are deserved.
And, yes, I did read this book.
It counts.
If I say so.
"DO YOU
WISH YOU
COULD
DRAW?"
"TAKE ART
LESSONS
FROM A
MONKEY!"
The caps and exclamation point are deserved.
And, yes, I did read this book.
It counts.
If I say so.
January 23, 2018
Another good illustrated book from Lynda Barry - this one focuses mostly on drawing.
April 14, 2017
What It Is is a masterpiece of writing, cursive, battling fears and embracing them, writing excercises, childhood, etc. Picture This is more of a scrapbook showcasing Lynda Barry's portfolio, which I personally have no problem with, but she is more used to writing about writing than drawing about drawing and it shows. A beautifully produced book with the meditating monkey, the near sighted monkey, the crazy ass elephant and the terrifying stain monsters, this book is sheer delight with ruminations on coloring books, copying, tracing, learning the art of the paintbrush technique. But expect a very different book than What It Is.
July 19, 2013
This book is in a genre of its own. Maybe that’s a good thing, but I found it difficult to make any sense of it at all. What was the author was trying to achieve? It seems like many of the reviewers lauded this book, but I failed to see much development or importance in the pictures or the accompanying text. Not my cup of tea.
April 28, 2022
Read this at my library all in one go and it was so hard not to cry right there in front of everyone absolutely heart breaking and heart mending I love you lynda <3
February 2, 2011
Even though I knew Barry has been going off in a different direction, I came in expecting the narrative force of 'Cruddy,' and looking for Marlys and Maybone. Marlys and Maybone are in 'Picture This,' but it's not an autobiographical work like, say, 'ONE! HUNDRED! DEMONS!' If you can't get over your preconceptions of what you think Lynda Barry does, or you are the linear type, this work will be difficult to take in. It's not only a primer for drawing, or a paean to the power of drawing, either, although it is both of those. It took a while, but I warmed up to it, and as a result of its influence, keep telling myself I've got to start doodling more. Barry gives noodling around, pasting things together, and nicotine addiction new meaning in 'Picture This.'
May 1, 2014
This is the best book about creativity I've ever read. Lynda Barry dives in and out of the dark places using her paintbrush as a life-line. It is so heartening to connect her process of grief and really see how drawing and painting saved her life. Really, there aren't words to describe how good this book is. I'd have to paint and draw and collage my review. Lynda Barry is a life-saver. She gives us all permission to draw like a kid again.
April 9, 2011
I've decided I love Lynda Barry. This is a sweet, honest book that asks why we start drawing and more importantly, why we stop.
I started doodling and drawing again thanks to this book. I took a long time going through it because I wanted to savor it.
I started doodling and drawing again thanks to this book. I took a long time going through it because I wanted to savor it.
July 5, 2016
Yes! I like that she elevates mindless doodling to a level worthy of respect.
Also check out What It Is, which is about writing.
February 10, 2014
“Picture This” shapes concepts into images, using comics, scribbles, dots, smears, cut outs and torn paper pasted onto pages, lines, colors, brushes, ink, paint, food coloring, and words which are “pictures” painted with a brush. This activity book provides an insight into the author’s mind and experiences. The Near-Sighted Monkey is Lynda Barry’s persona – and she enjoys art, watching a frustrated ballerina show, smoking Don’t (a cigarette brand for imaginary friends), bananas, her pet chicken, and visiting for the weekend. The color coordinated sections pass from Blue – Winter, Green – Spring, Pink – Summer, to Orange – Fall. Blue is immersed in a theme of sadness, and features a list at the beginning of the Winter “issue”: “Dots, lines, stains, scraps, scribbles, wads, drips, shapes, holes, beatnik art, monkeys, rabbits, monsters, smoking, shadows, television, chickens, giving up.” Dots, lines, and scribbles on scraps are used to help deal with anxiety and sadness, while the characters Maryl and Arna try to produce Beatnik Art made of colored scribbles to make money. Stains from blots and drips are stared at until they create shapes, seeing monkeys, rabbits, chickens, but mostly monsters. Shadows create shapes that are monsters. Imaginary friends smoke Don’t. Maryl wants to watch television but Arna wants to read or draw, and Lynda Barry draws as she watches television. Lynda Barry gave up drawing when she figured out she could not draw. For the Spring issue, the list is made up of synonyms: “Seeing, looking, staring, gazing, watching, glancing, observing.” The Near-Sighted Monkey arrived in a dream and brought her chicken, and many questions are asked: “What is making a picture all about? Is it for everyone? What makes kids draw? What makes adults scared to draw? Yes, it is real fear, but of what? Why aren’t kids scared of it? And what is it that one day comes to make them afraid?” And people with no imagination color, copy, and trace – so after Lynda Barry realized she could not draw, and the “blank page shut its doors,” coloring books became important. And she could only get to the shapes by staring. In the Summer issue, the list of contents is only a command: “Color it in.” Summer focuses on colors, asks what colors do, layers colors, makes paint out of food coloring, and the issue is full of Chinese brushes. Coloring pages are also provided for the reader to color, copy, trace, cut out, and paste. The Fall issue has another clear list: War, natural disaster, death, monkeys, sea monsters, paint brushes, cute animals, meditation, restoration, fingers/hands, nothing,” accompanied by cut outs: “What is this drawing for?” “Thinking” “Realization” “What am I supposed to do with it afterwards?” and “Something cosmic this way comes.” This issue contains the most text, and focuses more on Lynda Barry’s experiences and what she has encountered over the years.
The experiment Lynda Barry is attempting in “Picture This” involves blurring the distinction between shapes and letters – painting a book. “Writing it with a paint brush was what finally brought the book to life” (202). “Does experience have a shape? Can this shape be passed on from one person to another?” (54). The experiment is testing to see whether art can be a language effective enough to communicate with readers and retain their attention (“What is the difference between writing the alphabet and drawing it?”), as well as opening herself in a new way, allowing her to delve into the abstract desire to make art which arrives mysteriously in childhood and dies off somewhere during the transformation of a child into an adult. Writing with a paint brush produced images that encompassed what Barry was trying to communicate, in many cases using two young characters as a vehicle to ask the questions she was interested in addressing: What makes us start and stop drawing, and what is the art that is produced in-between the outer and inner self? These questions don’t have concrete answers, but they make the reader think.
The young characters, Maryl and Arna, resemble the young Lynda Barry which is drawn when she is recounting her experience as a child trying to draw and realizing that she did not have the talent that would make others appreciate her work. The older Barry (character) tells how she resorted to coloring books, and drawing dots and spirals to calm herself in hard times, and drew the Meditating Monkey a lot after the deaths of friends over the years. Art helped her, though these imaginary characters and the Near-Sighted Monkey persona were brought out of nothingness – therefore, her art is showing the power of nothing, yet it is undeniable that this nothing has become something to her, and by the end of the book, to the reader as well.
Barry’s experiment worked for me; I could interpret Maryl, Arna, and the imaginary friends that snuck onto the pages or dominated them, blown-up as the main focus. “Picture This,” asked me to become emotionally invested in the book (it is an activity book and I was told to participate), and to learn the language Barry’s brush strokes, dots, and colors were telling. The blue of winter was the saddest part of the book, as well as the longest, yet the sadness did not end there. Throughout the book, the young version of the author or one of her young characters was told again and again to stop trying, that they were “bad at drawing,” that they were wasting paper, causing them to adopt a more critical mindset when looking at their work, turning to coloring books as blank pages intimidated them. Their confidence was crushed. They saw monsters in stains, and smeared these creatures onto paper – but these were never received well, and young Barry was even told to stop ruining the “garbage” after she had taken a magazine out of the trash to draw on, poke holes in, and erase the eyes off of faces. Using child-characters as a vehicle made me pity them, the author, and others in their position more (even myself), as well as the adults who are afraid to draw because of what other people will say. If you aren’t good at it, don’t do it – is what they are claiming, but “Picture This” is rebelling against that “rule,” and is destroying the distinction between written and visual language, as well as what is deemed good or bad art.
The imaginary friends entered my mind fluidly, since I am familiar with dreams and imaginings – and since the Near-Sighted Monkey first arrived in a dream, she – the author’s persona – took control and made me look for rabbits in water stains. In this way, using these cute animal characters (and children) was an effective way of explaining how these drawings and doodles could become an emotional crutch and a means of exploring one’s own mind. If I were to draw my monsters and imaginary friends on paper, I don’t doubt that they would produce some kind of story that would resemble “Picture This,” telling me more about myself than I might care to know. If Lynda Barry had intended to write about her childhood experiences and wish to be able to draw, and had written the account down in black and white, printed text, the story would have been told by her singular perspective and voice. These cartoon vehicles produced diversity, in the perspective and voice of the book. The children had the voices of children. The imaginary friends showed me absurdity that at times came to an emotional conclusion – as when Mr. Beak continuously broke Mr. Trunks heart by leaving him for another. It is not hard to understand that characters can carry on a concept in a work of fiction, they can be used to represent some aspect of society, something good or bad, something religious, and produce a message through their actions. So it makes sense when Barry states that drawing the book/painting words brought the book to life, because it became animate due to the personalities encompassed by her creatures.
In addition to this, I interpreted Maryl and Arna as a medley of doddles that Barry claimed to have used to comfort herself through her life. Each girl is covered, head to toe, in freckles – the equivalent of dots. Barry had made dots to relieve her mind of her worries. Drawing these characters covered in dots and swirly ears and noses, and with wriggly limbs, produced a peace of mind that did not permit criticism (regarding talent at drawing or of telling stories) to enter. I did not judge the art I was looking at. I absorbed it, and read it gradually over the changing seasons, building layers of colors, and moods that fluctuated but somehow held onto the blue winter gloom.
I would like to try drawing a book that is entirely “wordless” – carried by the drawn characters, the mood established by colors and expressions, by shadows and their shapes. However, creating characters intentionally would defeat the open state of mind Barry illustrated in her book – the characters must arrive on their own and tell a story/take shape as the hand moves the brush over the page. The creativity of “Picture This” is inspiring, just as the struggles of the characters and Lynda Barry are saddening. Anger is never invoked against those who told the children to stop wasting paper, or that they should only draw on paper no one wants. It was not surprising either, that this sort of criticism existed. Talent seems to be a requirement in order to adopt a title – such as being an artist. An artist without talent is not what many imagine when they consider what it means for someone to produce art --- this book shows the joy and comfort art provides, and the great art that can be created by those who have been told they are wasting their time.
The experiment Lynda Barry is attempting in “Picture This” involves blurring the distinction between shapes and letters – painting a book. “Writing it with a paint brush was what finally brought the book to life” (202). “Does experience have a shape? Can this shape be passed on from one person to another?” (54). The experiment is testing to see whether art can be a language effective enough to communicate with readers and retain their attention (“What is the difference between writing the alphabet and drawing it?”), as well as opening herself in a new way, allowing her to delve into the abstract desire to make art which arrives mysteriously in childhood and dies off somewhere during the transformation of a child into an adult. Writing with a paint brush produced images that encompassed what Barry was trying to communicate, in many cases using two young characters as a vehicle to ask the questions she was interested in addressing: What makes us start and stop drawing, and what is the art that is produced in-between the outer and inner self? These questions don’t have concrete answers, but they make the reader think.
The young characters, Maryl and Arna, resemble the young Lynda Barry which is drawn when she is recounting her experience as a child trying to draw and realizing that she did not have the talent that would make others appreciate her work. The older Barry (character) tells how she resorted to coloring books, and drawing dots and spirals to calm herself in hard times, and drew the Meditating Monkey a lot after the deaths of friends over the years. Art helped her, though these imaginary characters and the Near-Sighted Monkey persona were brought out of nothingness – therefore, her art is showing the power of nothing, yet it is undeniable that this nothing has become something to her, and by the end of the book, to the reader as well.
Barry’s experiment worked for me; I could interpret Maryl, Arna, and the imaginary friends that snuck onto the pages or dominated them, blown-up as the main focus. “Picture This,” asked me to become emotionally invested in the book (it is an activity book and I was told to participate), and to learn the language Barry’s brush strokes, dots, and colors were telling. The blue of winter was the saddest part of the book, as well as the longest, yet the sadness did not end there. Throughout the book, the young version of the author or one of her young characters was told again and again to stop trying, that they were “bad at drawing,” that they were wasting paper, causing them to adopt a more critical mindset when looking at their work, turning to coloring books as blank pages intimidated them. Their confidence was crushed. They saw monsters in stains, and smeared these creatures onto paper – but these were never received well, and young Barry was even told to stop ruining the “garbage” after she had taken a magazine out of the trash to draw on, poke holes in, and erase the eyes off of faces. Using child-characters as a vehicle made me pity them, the author, and others in their position more (even myself), as well as the adults who are afraid to draw because of what other people will say. If you aren’t good at it, don’t do it – is what they are claiming, but “Picture This” is rebelling against that “rule,” and is destroying the distinction between written and visual language, as well as what is deemed good or bad art.
The imaginary friends entered my mind fluidly, since I am familiar with dreams and imaginings – and since the Near-Sighted Monkey first arrived in a dream, she – the author’s persona – took control and made me look for rabbits in water stains. In this way, using these cute animal characters (and children) was an effective way of explaining how these drawings and doodles could become an emotional crutch and a means of exploring one’s own mind. If I were to draw my monsters and imaginary friends on paper, I don’t doubt that they would produce some kind of story that would resemble “Picture This,” telling me more about myself than I might care to know. If Lynda Barry had intended to write about her childhood experiences and wish to be able to draw, and had written the account down in black and white, printed text, the story would have been told by her singular perspective and voice. These cartoon vehicles produced diversity, in the perspective and voice of the book. The children had the voices of children. The imaginary friends showed me absurdity that at times came to an emotional conclusion – as when Mr. Beak continuously broke Mr. Trunks heart by leaving him for another. It is not hard to understand that characters can carry on a concept in a work of fiction, they can be used to represent some aspect of society, something good or bad, something religious, and produce a message through their actions. So it makes sense when Barry states that drawing the book/painting words brought the book to life, because it became animate due to the personalities encompassed by her creatures.
In addition to this, I interpreted Maryl and Arna as a medley of doddles that Barry claimed to have used to comfort herself through her life. Each girl is covered, head to toe, in freckles – the equivalent of dots. Barry had made dots to relieve her mind of her worries. Drawing these characters covered in dots and swirly ears and noses, and with wriggly limbs, produced a peace of mind that did not permit criticism (regarding talent at drawing or of telling stories) to enter. I did not judge the art I was looking at. I absorbed it, and read it gradually over the changing seasons, building layers of colors, and moods that fluctuated but somehow held onto the blue winter gloom.
I would like to try drawing a book that is entirely “wordless” – carried by the drawn characters, the mood established by colors and expressions, by shadows and their shapes. However, creating characters intentionally would defeat the open state of mind Barry illustrated in her book – the characters must arrive on their own and tell a story/take shape as the hand moves the brush over the page. The creativity of “Picture This” is inspiring, just as the struggles of the characters and Lynda Barry are saddening. Anger is never invoked against those who told the children to stop wasting paper, or that they should only draw on paper no one wants. It was not surprising either, that this sort of criticism existed. Talent seems to be a requirement in order to adopt a title – such as being an artist. An artist without talent is not what many imagine when they consider what it means for someone to produce art --- this book shows the joy and comfort art provides, and the great art that can be created by those who have been told they are wasting their time.
February 21, 2021
I love everything Lynda Barry creates. You cannot help but feel more creative when you step into her books. In this graphic, how-to, semi-memoir book she asks, "What is making a picture all about? Is it for everyone? What makes kids draw? What makes adults scared to draw? Yes, it IS real fear, but of what? Why aren't kids scared of it? And what is it that one day comes to make them afraid?" Her mixture of simplistic drawing and collage are incredible, and yet so doable for everyone. There is not one image in this book that readers could not recreate and she walks us through how to doodle, 'one line at a time' and encourages us to ignore those voices that say "You can't draw," because you've narrowed your definition of drawing to an unattainable standard. But on another level, she's really trying to encourage us to examine our fears and not let them hold us back. Life is short. Draw more. Live more.
April 2, 2019
This book is less theory/reflection, more practice than What It Is. Not that What It Is was lacking in practical, either, but the path to action this book shows are, I feel, a lot shorter from the idea to the doing than in What It Is. But drawing versus writing is like that; the barrier to entry is much lower. In the absence of don't, you can just do.
October 3, 2017
I really liked this one - Lynda Barry has such beautiful thoughts on creativity and about artistic practice and self censorship. it's a beautiful book and a thoughtful book - and a great reminder to push myself to doodle and draw more in my daily and my creative life
February 4, 2014
Lyda Barry messes with our expectations in this fun and funky coloring, craft and do-a-lot book that confuses genre and drags the reader into a strange world where monkeys smoke, little girls do not grow up to be princesses (okay, that bits real) and two creatures called Beak and Trunk have intense conversations, transcribes through morsels that run through the pages like a crazy herd of elephants.
It’s hard to pick a favorite theme in this book (follow the white rabbit?) but there’s plenty here for the fantasy fan. Barry’s wonderland is populated by a compilation of characters and themes that drag the reader in like the smoke of the ever present cancer stick glued to the mouth of the near sighted monkey (15). Horror? Sure, there’s some of that; the kind that kids experience, that doesn’t really have a shape or form, but can be seen in the eyes of the occasional adult. Showing us a picture of a grown-up with gleaming yellow eyes and a hunched up body, Barry asks us, “what’s makes this picture creepy?” (52). The book could be called intuitive, since upon reading it we are pitched into a chaotic brimful world that feels like racing after a ball of unraveling wool whose end can never really be reached. If there’s anything that this book encourages us to do more than another thing, it’s to give free rein to our imagination, and let our minds do the walking.
The traumatic process of “growing up” and leaving childishness behind is highlighted. A child – who might be called unattractive, if you could apply such an epithet to a kid – with glasses, spots, and lanky hair, provides an unusual heroine as we are encouraged to live through her experiences of growing up. What makes her weird? And why do we like her so much? The value of variety and the pointlessness of cookie-cutter shapes seems to be emphasized by the jumble of fun that carries this book forward. This book is for the person that never had an imaginary friend as a kid, but now misses them strangely. Personally, if any of the creations could come alive, I’d have to pick the elephant crossed with an octopus as a favorite playschool date (7).
The system for organization in the book is according to the seasons. sections are colored blue, green, red and brown, and it’s been pointed out that one of the preoccupations of the author is time. How do we make valuable use of what we’ve got on earth? Just what qualifies as value? Interestingly, the book seems to provoke more questions than it has answers for. This is not a book to “solve,” rather it’s a puzzle that leads – well, to another puzzle. Maybe that’s life! By the time we have followed Marlys through the book, we’ve gotten to know her – her hopes (become a ballerina with stick on clothes!) (176); her fears (strange, faceless figures who track through this book like oddly shaped ghosts (17). If it’s a book without answers, however, it’s strangely satisfying, and as we trot through the pages and “peel the orange” of layers, we join Barry in her fantastic and grotesque imagination, a place filled with equal parts terror and joy, adventure and routine. Buy it, read it, live it!
It’s hard to pick a favorite theme in this book (follow the white rabbit?) but there’s plenty here for the fantasy fan. Barry’s wonderland is populated by a compilation of characters and themes that drag the reader in like the smoke of the ever present cancer stick glued to the mouth of the near sighted monkey (15). Horror? Sure, there’s some of that; the kind that kids experience, that doesn’t really have a shape or form, but can be seen in the eyes of the occasional adult. Showing us a picture of a grown-up with gleaming yellow eyes and a hunched up body, Barry asks us, “what’s makes this picture creepy?” (52). The book could be called intuitive, since upon reading it we are pitched into a chaotic brimful world that feels like racing after a ball of unraveling wool whose end can never really be reached. If there’s anything that this book encourages us to do more than another thing, it’s to give free rein to our imagination, and let our minds do the walking.
The traumatic process of “growing up” and leaving childishness behind is highlighted. A child – who might be called unattractive, if you could apply such an epithet to a kid – with glasses, spots, and lanky hair, provides an unusual heroine as we are encouraged to live through her experiences of growing up. What makes her weird? And why do we like her so much? The value of variety and the pointlessness of cookie-cutter shapes seems to be emphasized by the jumble of fun that carries this book forward. This book is for the person that never had an imaginary friend as a kid, but now misses them strangely. Personally, if any of the creations could come alive, I’d have to pick the elephant crossed with an octopus as a favorite playschool date (7).
The system for organization in the book is according to the seasons. sections are colored blue, green, red and brown, and it’s been pointed out that one of the preoccupations of the author is time. How do we make valuable use of what we’ve got on earth? Just what qualifies as value? Interestingly, the book seems to provoke more questions than it has answers for. This is not a book to “solve,” rather it’s a puzzle that leads – well, to another puzzle. Maybe that’s life! By the time we have followed Marlys through the book, we’ve gotten to know her – her hopes (become a ballerina with stick on clothes!) (176); her fears (strange, faceless figures who track through this book like oddly shaped ghosts (17). If it’s a book without answers, however, it’s strangely satisfying, and as we trot through the pages and “peel the orange” of layers, we join Barry in her fantastic and grotesque imagination, a place filled with equal parts terror and joy, adventure and routine. Buy it, read it, live it!
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February 5, 2014Linda Barry invites the reader into a world of playfulness and delicious rule-breaking in Picture This, with the quirky Near-sighted Monkey as her herald. Just as the reader begins to discover the strange hodge-podge of narratives and interactive art of Picture This, sisters Arna and Marlys stumble across the book themselves. Through this double narrative, Picture This encourages the reader to question their perceptions of art, beauty, time, and social norms.
Stylistically, Picture This resides somewhere between a visual memoir, a comic strip, and a how-to workbook. Simultaneous narratives pervade the book, but are not easily segmented or dissected. One potential narrative is Barry herself—a writer-artist who reflects on her own struggles with art and creativity. However, the identity of this narrator is blended with several others: of the sisters, of the Near-sighted Monkey, and ultimately of the reader themselves. For instance, one sketch portrays the Monkey and the writer-artist as mirror images, one labelled as “inside”, the other as “outside”(127). This suggests that the Monkey and the writer-artist are alter-egos of one another, but neither personality manages to take over in the book and they work in balance.
A certain involvement is also achieved with the reader, who is invited, even urged to take a participating role in the book's narrative. For example, one entire segment of the book is labelled “Color Time” and is reserved for the reader's own creativity: the only instructions are “copy, trace, color, cut, paste”(181-185). By requiring an element of the book be produced by the reader themselves, Barry creates a space where the reader's own creativity holds sway over the book's stylistic themes. This creates a level of intimacy with the reader that is at simultaneously jarring and liberating.
In this way, our vision of the book's narrative is multiplicitous. We are forced to participate in multiple layers of experience—our own engagement with the text, but also Arna and Marlys' discovery of the book that they ultimately write themselves into as well.
At the heart of Barry's book is an exploration of creativity, one that dismantles modern concepts of time. Picture This deconstructs our perceptions of time “wasted” versus time “spent”, challenging American society's comodification and compartmentalization of time. She pushes the reader to think about the source of creativity and the forces that impede it, asking questions like, why do children draw? why do adults stop? just what are we so afraid of? The book challenges its reader to stop thinking of art as “wasted time or paper”, but rather as a richness of creativity that can only be reached through thoughtlessness and play (112). Picture This closes with a commandment woven throughout the text: “just remember to monkey around!”
Stylistically, Picture This resides somewhere between a visual memoir, a comic strip, and a how-to workbook. Simultaneous narratives pervade the book, but are not easily segmented or dissected. One potential narrative is Barry herself—a writer-artist who reflects on her own struggles with art and creativity. However, the identity of this narrator is blended with several others: of the sisters, of the Near-sighted Monkey, and ultimately of the reader themselves. For instance, one sketch portrays the Monkey and the writer-artist as mirror images, one labelled as “inside”, the other as “outside”(127). This suggests that the Monkey and the writer-artist are alter-egos of one another, but neither personality manages to take over in the book and they work in balance.
A certain involvement is also achieved with the reader, who is invited, even urged to take a participating role in the book's narrative. For example, one entire segment of the book is labelled “Color Time” and is reserved for the reader's own creativity: the only instructions are “copy, trace, color, cut, paste”(181-185). By requiring an element of the book be produced by the reader themselves, Barry creates a space where the reader's own creativity holds sway over the book's stylistic themes. This creates a level of intimacy with the reader that is at simultaneously jarring and liberating.
In this way, our vision of the book's narrative is multiplicitous. We are forced to participate in multiple layers of experience—our own engagement with the text, but also Arna and Marlys' discovery of the book that they ultimately write themselves into as well.
At the heart of Barry's book is an exploration of creativity, one that dismantles modern concepts of time. Picture This deconstructs our perceptions of time “wasted” versus time “spent”, challenging American society's comodification and compartmentalization of time. She pushes the reader to think about the source of creativity and the forces that impede it, asking questions like, why do children draw? why do adults stop? just what are we so afraid of? The book challenges its reader to stop thinking of art as “wasted time or paper”, but rather as a richness of creativity that can only be reached through thoughtlessness and play (112). Picture This closes with a commandment woven throughout the text: “just remember to monkey around!”
February 5, 2014
Lynda Barry's Picture This: The Near-Sighted Monkey Book is an exploration, an "Amazing New Scientific Breakthrough", into the role that drawing, doodling, and ultimately art, plays in the importance of children and adults' lives. A chain-smoking female monkey wearing glasses and a bandana guides us through a memoir-like storybook of images that tell about Marlys and Arna's childhoods. The narrative voice that emerges seems to be Barry's own, as the author and creator, and she examines how over-thinking and the judgment of others influenced her own natural creative process. She also alludes to her 40 year old self trying to mend the obstructions that she built to conform her ideas, and set her creativity free.
Reading this large, colorful picture book allows the reader to experience a playful return back to the days spent in coloring books, and the imagination was given free reign. Barry seems to encourage this not only in herself but in her reader as well, inviting the reader to dot her hand-drawn images (p.37), color (p.181-185), and cut out a paper doll of Marlys and dress her up (p.76-79, 176-179). All the while, the story fluctuates from being about the two girls and the voiceless near sighted monkey who exists as a sort of projected personality, a spirit animal of sorts. There are monsters, elephants, scribbles, and the seasons playfully explored here, there, everywhere, as Barry invites the reader to participate in her experiments of drawing thoughtlessly with a paintbrush, writing the alphabet, drawing certain images in times of great suffering (the meditating monkey p.122), and allowing the pen, pencil, or paintbrush to express what is hidden deep inside all adults, hidden once childhood has wandered past.
There is also great humor found in this work, which brings the reader not only into Barry's mind and memories, but also into her arms, giving a safe space and most importantly, the permission needed to let go and let our inner child be released. She cleverly introduces an imaginary cigarette product with the slogan "Smoke Don't", "the imaginary cigarette for imaginary friends" (p.31), potentially turning a smoke free mentality on its head. Her creative and crafting talents are laid out for the readers to marvel, while at the same time, we get a sense that this book is as much for Barry as it is for us. This book is full of color, writing experiments, memories, monsters and monkeys, and leaves an enormous monkey paw print in experimental literature, fusing it with comic books and graphic art.
Reading this large, colorful picture book allows the reader to experience a playful return back to the days spent in coloring books, and the imagination was given free reign. Barry seems to encourage this not only in herself but in her reader as well, inviting the reader to dot her hand-drawn images (p.37), color (p.181-185), and cut out a paper doll of Marlys and dress her up (p.76-79, 176-179). All the while, the story fluctuates from being about the two girls and the voiceless near sighted monkey who exists as a sort of projected personality, a spirit animal of sorts. There are monsters, elephants, scribbles, and the seasons playfully explored here, there, everywhere, as Barry invites the reader to participate in her experiments of drawing thoughtlessly with a paintbrush, writing the alphabet, drawing certain images in times of great suffering (the meditating monkey p.122), and allowing the pen, pencil, or paintbrush to express what is hidden deep inside all adults, hidden once childhood has wandered past.
There is also great humor found in this work, which brings the reader not only into Barry's mind and memories, but also into her arms, giving a safe space and most importantly, the permission needed to let go and let our inner child be released. She cleverly introduces an imaginary cigarette product with the slogan "Smoke Don't", "the imaginary cigarette for imaginary friends" (p.31), potentially turning a smoke free mentality on its head. Her creative and crafting talents are laid out for the readers to marvel, while at the same time, we get a sense that this book is as much for Barry as it is for us. This book is full of color, writing experiments, memories, monsters and monkeys, and leaves an enormous monkey paw print in experimental literature, fusing it with comic books and graphic art.
February 3, 2014
Upon opening Lynda Barry’s Picture This: The Near-sighted Monkey Book, the reader is bombarded with colors, images, instructions on drawing, and questions about the choices made throughout one’s life. We follow the stories of Marlys and Arna, the Near-sighted Monkey simultaneously, and occasionally tidbits from minor characters like Mr. Trunk and Mr. Beak. The book is a conglomerate of doodles, comics, and paintings paratactically mixed with several questions concerning why we as adults can no longer draw. Barry also weaves in quotes and poetry from Dickinson, Shelley, Milner, Sengai, Blake and other notable figures.
The format of this piece scatters between hand-drawn visuals and pieces of text that has been typed or hand-written. While the book follows no particular structure, it resembles a how-to drawing guide. There are several different instructions and guides to drawing such as with food coloring and a Q-tip, using only one color, using cotton, squiggles, and others. Throughout the book, there are also many Chinese influences, especially in the opening of the book featuring a white rabbit under a full moon, a well-known cultural story, stamped with a faux traditional Chinese red seal on the sides. We also travel through seasons, notified by the colors of the page borders, and a constant throughout the book is the advertisement for Don’t imaginary cigarettes. But rather than promoting smoking, it reflects how media tells its viewers to lose that childlike curiosity and creativity: "don't get ideas” and "don't try it" (214). Each page is just brim with artistic and textual details that forces the reader to soak in the pages individually so that we don’t miss a single aspect.
Oftentimes, we are asked why they no longer draw: “What makes kids draw? What makes adults scared to draw?” forcing us to wonder exactly what’s stopped us from drawing (96). We are also asked what the difference between writing and drawing the alphabet is. Perhaps it is intention of the writer or drawer, but it forces us to think maybe we still draw but we just call it writing. Whatever it is, that is what the piece is telling us to think about: why have we stopped drawing and how do we try to pick it up again.
The format of this piece scatters between hand-drawn visuals and pieces of text that has been typed or hand-written. While the book follows no particular structure, it resembles a how-to drawing guide. There are several different instructions and guides to drawing such as with food coloring and a Q-tip, using only one color, using cotton, squiggles, and others. Throughout the book, there are also many Chinese influences, especially in the opening of the book featuring a white rabbit under a full moon, a well-known cultural story, stamped with a faux traditional Chinese red seal on the sides. We also travel through seasons, notified by the colors of the page borders, and a constant throughout the book is the advertisement for Don’t imaginary cigarettes. But rather than promoting smoking, it reflects how media tells its viewers to lose that childlike curiosity and creativity: "don't get ideas” and "don't try it" (214). Each page is just brim with artistic and textual details that forces the reader to soak in the pages individually so that we don’t miss a single aspect.
Oftentimes, we are asked why they no longer draw: “What makes kids draw? What makes adults scared to draw?” forcing us to wonder exactly what’s stopped us from drawing (96). We are also asked what the difference between writing and drawing the alphabet is. Perhaps it is intention of the writer or drawer, but it forces us to think maybe we still draw but we just call it writing. Whatever it is, that is what the piece is telling us to think about: why have we stopped drawing and how do we try to pick it up again.
January 27, 2012
I had a good feeling about this one. You see, I loved Lynda Barry's earlier work, "What It Is", the ground-breaking, mold-shattering, genre-defying and above all, inspiring, book about creative writing. I had a sneaking suspicion that she might have adapted the same format with visual art in mind. And I was right. "Picture This" does for art what "What It Is" did for creative writing. They encourage letting go of preconceived notions of "good" and "bad" and promote experimentation. The format is highly unusual, combining full page works of art, comics and activities to get the mind operating in new and different ways. Barry never makes the reader feel as though they can't do something; in fact, that is one of the best elements of her work. Her exercises do not intimidate. They are not pretentious. They make you realize you had the artistic streak in you all along; you just thought you were somehow doing it wrong and therefore had no talent. Barry wants you to know that you've had it in you all along. If readers of this book don't feel like grabbing a paintbrush (or their art-related weapon of choice)upon finishing this book, said readers may not be human.
March 31, 2011
i really have no idea what to think of this book. it was nice to look at. i liked all the marlys in it, & i really liked all the bats. especially marlys hanging out with a bat, & a bat attacking a ballet dancer. but collage & drawings is pretty much all this book is. what "substance" there is in terms of thoughts about drawing is mostly very vague & impressionistic. i didn't dislike it...but it's not really the kind of thing that gets me going. it is very much like what it is, another collage-heavy lynda barry how-to-ish book long on pretty pictures & short on utility, except this one has even less straightforward content. it's great for devoted lynda barry fans, but probably few others, unfortunately.
September 6, 2011
I could not love Lynda Barry more. This book is mesmerizing. She talks (and draws!) about the barriers to creativity in the most generous, inspiring, clever way possible. Nothing I've ever read has made me so motivated to create.
October 3, 2017
This is the most amazing memoir / art how-to I have ever encountered. I had to stop several times while reading it to make comics. For anyone who is struggling with creativity, who has anxiety about making things, or who just feels like they're not creative, this book is for you.
November 11, 2012
Genius. Great. Lynda Barry is the best. A book for getting unstuck or finding a new way, or re-finding an old way of looking at things.
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April 9, 2012I feel like I’ve just read a how-to book that was haunted by Edward Gorey’s The Doubtful Guest. And he brought bunnies. . . .
November 28, 2012
Went to the library for Ursula K. Le Guin's Tehanu, found this instead. Win.
Lynda! Barry! Rocks!
Lynda! Barry! Rocks!
February 24, 2024
I love this.
I've read a number of Barry's books before, both fiction and nonfiction, and while I've liked most of them, I don't recall giving any of them more than three stars. Her characters often resonate with me more than her drawing, but this? This was wonderful all through. It's basically a book designed to encourage people to draw. Who cares if you're not good at art? Trace this monkey character and colour it in, and pay no attention to people who roll their eyes at you for trying. Creativity, Barry argues, is less the result than the act, or the attempt.
As someone who is hopeless at art, this may be the most encouraging have-a-go book I've ever seen. Not that I've read many have-a-go-at-art books, but you get the drift. It's stuffed full of whimsical figures - such as the near-sighted monkey, who acts as a guide - and entertaining one-liners. My favourite: the book suggests, when sad, to make a chicken by pasting cotton wool in the shape of a fowl onto cardboard. A picture of a depressed elephant-like creature leaves a note on the bottom of the page: "At first I thought the chicken was crappy looking but then I had my heart broken and making that crappy chicken was the only thing that made me feel better. Signed, Mr. Trunk."
I should not have cackled at sad, chicken-making Mr. Trunk. I did anyway. Sympathetic and enchanted. Then there's the rest: "There is nothing lame about drawing fungus." The banana pancake mix in the washing machine. The endless swarms of bats. The proper etiquette of disposing of banana peels when a guest in someone's house. The sad, doomed relationship between Mr. Trunk and Mr. Beak. Play in the sun, you vampire! Don't cigarettes.
Whenever I rate a book five stars on review sites like this, it's a reminder to myself that I have to go buy a copy. (Nearly all my reading material comes from the library. I make a note to buy what I don't want to give back.) I want my own copy of this - it's absolutely delightful. And encouraging. But mostly delightful.
I've read a number of Barry's books before, both fiction and nonfiction, and while I've liked most of them, I don't recall giving any of them more than three stars. Her characters often resonate with me more than her drawing, but this? This was wonderful all through. It's basically a book designed to encourage people to draw. Who cares if you're not good at art? Trace this monkey character and colour it in, and pay no attention to people who roll their eyes at you for trying. Creativity, Barry argues, is less the result than the act, or the attempt.
As someone who is hopeless at art, this may be the most encouraging have-a-go book I've ever seen. Not that I've read many have-a-go-at-art books, but you get the drift. It's stuffed full of whimsical figures - such as the near-sighted monkey, who acts as a guide - and entertaining one-liners. My favourite: the book suggests, when sad, to make a chicken by pasting cotton wool in the shape of a fowl onto cardboard. A picture of a depressed elephant-like creature leaves a note on the bottom of the page: "At first I thought the chicken was crappy looking but then I had my heart broken and making that crappy chicken was the only thing that made me feel better. Signed, Mr. Trunk."
I should not have cackled at sad, chicken-making Mr. Trunk. I did anyway. Sympathetic and enchanted. Then there's the rest: "There is nothing lame about drawing fungus." The banana pancake mix in the washing machine. The endless swarms of bats. The proper etiquette of disposing of banana peels when a guest in someone's house. The sad, doomed relationship between Mr. Trunk and Mr. Beak. Play in the sun, you vampire! Don't cigarettes.
Whenever I rate a book five stars on review sites like this, it's a reminder to myself that I have to go buy a copy. (Nearly all my reading material comes from the library. I make a note to buy what I don't want to give back.) I want my own copy of this - it's absolutely delightful. And encouraging. But mostly delightful.
July 27, 2019
What is here is not so much about being instructed how to draw, but how to be visited by images.
There was a metaphor that came to me that described this work so well, but I wasn't in a position to write it down and now it has escaped me. That is fitting, given the "Remember to Forget to Remember" mantra of this book.
There is a kind of drawing instruction present here, and a kind of memoir, but these things are not central; instead the central action of the book is that the creatures of the back of the mind are allowed to come forward and play. An often unremarked reversal happens: it is the author's childhood friends and family that discourage her creative development, but the figures of nightmares are her creative guardians and mentors.
This book is one a very similar path as "What it is" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...), but this one feels even less aimed at instruction and more aimed at expression and in particular expressing a turn in her creative life. It's an emotional story of the meditation of drawing producing a gap in sadness and worry where peace and self-discovery happens.
There's a category of books I enjoy that I call "night-reading", which to copy myself from another review, is a vacation from the logic and rationality of the day, but instead an invitation to arcane beauty and free-form creativity, adult wonder and unexplained personal significances. It feels too obvious to say that this book is firmly in that category.
The pages change color as to reflect changes in seasons. There's a surprising amount seasonal association throughout the book (even more upon reflection), but the colors also strongly support the compositions.
There is also a change of seasons in the author's soul, midwifed by powerful visitors of great benevolence.
November 26, 2019
When Lynda Barry published the story that led to her first memoir-cum-meditation-on-creativity, What It Is, in the McSweeney's comic issue 15 years ago, it blew my mind. In examining why and how her own creative juices seemed to dry up the more accomplished she became, and how she fought against that, I felt like she was talking to ME. When I finally read the book-length version, it seemed to end more or less where the essay did, with an exhortation to embrace the unknown and trust your own mind, risking failure in the hopes a greater, more authentic success - but the autobiographical stories and delightful collages that had been built up around the theme were a truly delightful addition.
I finally picked this up hoping for a deepening and widening of these ideas, but instead found... more of the same? This is not necessarily a bad thing - Barry is a wise and wonderful guide, embracing her own flaws and neuroses and welcoming you in to warm yourself next to them on a cold winter's day. There are some new ideas here specific to drawing, and some simple exercises you can undertake. But this is more of a foundational, inspirational book than any kind of direct guide - something you can use to soak in and store up your energies, rather than something to galvanize you into action.
At least, that's my take - one of the wonderful things about the book is that it's abstract enough to take however you'd like, since it's not quite a how-to, but an art object in its own right. I can see myself picking it up and browsing some of my favorite pages years from now and getting something completely different out of it.
I finally picked this up hoping for a deepening and widening of these ideas, but instead found... more of the same? This is not necessarily a bad thing - Barry is a wise and wonderful guide, embracing her own flaws and neuroses and welcoming you in to warm yourself next to them on a cold winter's day. There are some new ideas here specific to drawing, and some simple exercises you can undertake. But this is more of a foundational, inspirational book than any kind of direct guide - something you can use to soak in and store up your energies, rather than something to galvanize you into action.
At least, that's my take - one of the wonderful things about the book is that it's abstract enough to take however you'd like, since it's not quite a how-to, but an art object in its own right. I can see myself picking it up and browsing some of my favorite pages years from now and getting something completely different out of it.
June 7, 2021
Recommended to me by an artist who adores Barry, this book is odd. There are chickens and imaginary cigarettes and tips about how... no, why... to create art when you feel terrible.
I think primarily this book is a love letter to people who want to draw and have been given the message they can't. It's not allowed. You're not good enough. But it's also a book about the process of making art, what that is and the way it changes us and our lives. She talks about this, and shows it too, in ways that are small and specific, like suggestions to make a friendly chicken or draw some spirals (A spiral is portable, reliable and takes up unbearable time and space and thoughts that torment. It gives us a place to rest and be.) and with larger questions for the reader: what holds your interest? What makes you able to endure uncertainty?
I'm a musician, not a visual artist, and I think all of what Barry is saying with this book applies just as well to making music. Expect to flounder. You have to be willing to spend time making things for no known reason. Yes.
It's a lovely book. I'm glad I read it. It won't teach you how to draw, and maybe it won't teach you anything at all, but it has important questions in it. And monsters, and chickens, and imaginary cigs.
I think primarily this book is a love letter to people who want to draw and have been given the message they can't. It's not allowed. You're not good enough. But it's also a book about the process of making art, what that is and the way it changes us and our lives. She talks about this, and shows it too, in ways that are small and specific, like suggestions to make a friendly chicken or draw some spirals (A spiral is portable, reliable and takes up unbearable time and space and thoughts that torment. It gives us a place to rest and be.) and with larger questions for the reader: what holds your interest? What makes you able to endure uncertainty?
I'm a musician, not a visual artist, and I think all of what Barry is saying with this book applies just as well to making music. Expect to flounder. You have to be willing to spend time making things for no known reason. Yes.
It's a lovely book. I'm glad I read it. It won't teach you how to draw, and maybe it won't teach you anything at all, but it has important questions in it. And monsters, and chickens, and imaginary cigs.
July 20, 2023
It's hard to describe what this book is, let alone what it's doing. A surreal graphic memoir/how-to book? "Do you wish you could draw?" the cover asks you, and the book proceeds to turn the way we think about drawing on its head. Barry's approach to art is one full of joy, yet never shies away from the dark places, the creepy shapes that appear at night as a child stares at the ceiling unable to sleep. "When we see the water-stain creatures, are we inventing them or is the ceiling inventing them?"
"What is making a picture all about? Is it for everyone? What makes kids draw? What makes adults scared to draw? Yes, it IS real fear. But of what? Why aren't kids scared of it? And what is it that one day comes to make them afraid?"
Working with kids everyday, I am fascinated by the process of drawing and how it changes as kids grow up, how they gain fine motor control and yet grow to lose the spark of spontaneity, becoming obsessed with how to draw such and such a thing the "correct" way.
"In terrible times, people sing. Things can be said no other way. Mourners sing. Music makes a way. It's not a way out but a way in. Where do you go when you color? Where can a brush take you? It can take you to the singing place."
"What is making a picture all about? Is it for everyone? What makes kids draw? What makes adults scared to draw? Yes, it IS real fear. But of what? Why aren't kids scared of it? And what is it that one day comes to make them afraid?"
Working with kids everyday, I am fascinated by the process of drawing and how it changes as kids grow up, how they gain fine motor control and yet grow to lose the spark of spontaneity, becoming obsessed with how to draw such and such a thing the "correct" way.
"In terrible times, people sing. Things can be said no other way. Mourners sing. Music makes a way. It's not a way out but a way in. Where do you go when you color? Where can a brush take you? It can take you to the singing place."
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