Letting crayons say it all

Mind Moves: "Art does not reproduce what is visible, it makes things visible" - Swiss painter and engraver Paul Klee

Mind Moves: "Art does not reproduce what is visible, it makes things visible" - Swiss painter and engraver Paul Klee. Children love to draw. Adults love their drawings.

Visible expressions of the infant mind, children's drawings inscribe themselves upon the page and the parental heart in a special way.

To the outside observer, a child's drawing may appear to be no more than random marks upon the page but to the parental eye it is self-portraiture of the most exquisite kind.

For it depicts what is real and relevant in that child's life and demonstrates more powerfully than words the relationship between the child and family members from the child's perspective.

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This quest for self-expression begins when the infant discovers that he or she is the actual source of that visible scribble upon the page. There follows another. Another mark is made and then one more. So it must have been with primitive man marking out the entrance to his cave, the outline of the world beyond its shelter, maps of hunting grounds, animals to be avoided, dangers overcome, foods acquired, feelings to be recorded and finally depictions of his kith and kin and all those people in his life who he held dear to him.

So too, a child's scribble is more than a scrawl. It is the beginning of a process of inscribing his or her individuality upon the world. Thereafter, the arm swings to and fro and up and down across the page.

The process of self-portraiture begins. Shapes are formed. Circles appear with matchstick appendages, animated life, arms akimbo, legs splayed in disembodied dance. There are dashes for digits, squiggles for shoes, circles for faces, dots for eyes, triangular noses and semicircular mouths turning up or down depending on the mood.

There is concentration in the art. Lines are coloured carefully, colours chosen purposely, bright yellow suns and round proximate moons, many windowed, double-fronted houses with winding paths to painted doors with numbers, knobs and bells, picket fences, chimneys with smoke spiralling up towards curly clouds and wide winged birds skimming through the bright blue sky.

All life is here if we look. For the scrawls of childhood are more than colourful scribbles, they are the psychological palettes of the child's affective world. They are evidence of attachment, etchings of emotion and doodled depictions of identity and family life upon a page.

Who has not seen the "family drawing" of matchstick men in ascending size, tall dads, long- haired mums and rows of sibs? Who has not seen the family drawing with the new baby absent or larger than a house or marooned in the farthest corner of the page? Who upon seeing these works has not understood what place that new arrival holds in the dethroned childhood heart? How many drawings have pictures of a bullying sib menacing the page? How many show the saddest child alone? Who is tiny, who is large?

How many dads are absent, committed to the side, how many mums, how many faceless partners, how many joyous yellow sparkling suns, how many face-size grins, what cheerful smiles, how many tears, how many outstretched arms, how many crossed, straight or amputated?

The drawing of a child is the life of a child depicted in stark, salient strokes for those of us who wish to understand the emotional colours that tint their inner lives. Who is crossed out? Who is not there? Who stands next to the artist and who is farthest away and why? Who holds whose hand? Who has the biggest hands, the tiniest feet, who is looking out and who is turned away? What pets parade across the page or snuggle at the artist's feet?

What landscape does the artist choose? What flower and tress surround? What observations has this artist made about the world that we might recognise as relevant?

A century of studies by psychologists, and educators identifies the significance of children's drawings in identifying developmental ability or difficulty, emotional security or distress, happiness or trauma, and the therapeutic role of drawing as a medium through which the child may express what he or she cannot verbalise or articulate.

Drawing engages the senses. Children love, the sight of colour, the smell of crayon, the splish of water and the feel of brightly coloured gooey paint. Rainbows of colours collide upon the page, creations, crayon deep, adorn the house and decorate the fridge and grin from notice boards.

Finger paints allow the imprint of a hand or foot and rows of vibrant palm prints bedeck the walls of nurseries and school, followed by lively footprints of those feet that one day may imprint their power upon the world.

The gift of a drawing by a child is a gift indeed. It says to the therapist I trust you with my world. It says to the parent you are my world.

Which is why no Caravaggio could replace the crumpled, multi-coloured artistry of family life upon a page drawn by a child, coloured with love, presented with pride and cherished forever in boxes of memorabilia that record the mental life of childhood and the history of mankind.

Marie Murray is a clinical psychologist and author. She is director of psychology at St Vincent's Hospital, Fairview.