Have you ever noticed that a request to do something creative causes a real stupor in many of us? For example, if you're asked to make a joke, then even if you've just watched a couple of great standup videos, read a whole selection of the funniest jokes, and are generally a born mingler—there's a high probability that you will simply "get stuck." The only ones who are usually not affected by this principle are kids.
The creativity of many children is almost off the charts—and only art teachers with their pedagogical skills and experience are able to keep this creativity within reasonable limits. But sometimes, this experience fails—teachers ask schoolers to "just draw something"—and then are surprised by the completely unpredictable results.
More info: Reddit
#1
Parent here, not an art teacher. In Kindergarten, my son came home with a packet of finished assignments he got back from the teacher. One was a paper having them draw a body part with the prompt "Here are my...". Example given was "feet". What did my kid draw? Butt cheeks. Drawing of the back of a person with two giant (well-drawn, I might add) cheeks.
My husband and I laughed our own butt cheeks off when we saw it. We kept the paper. For Posteriority.
Image credits: portlandspudnic
#2
My brother was told to draw an animal from any angle he wanted so he drew a dot and said it was a very far away lion.
Image credits: ImNotThatGoodLooking
#3
One kid had to have a meeting with the principal, her parents and the art teacher because the art teacher decided that because this second grade girl only drew people without hands, the little girl felt powerless.
All these adults question this child about the meaning of her drawings. She tells them, "Hands are too hard to draw.".
Image credits: alleghenysinger
Yes, our selection today is dedicated to all sorts of creative embarrassments that happen when children's ingenuity spills out onto paper without any restrictions from teachers or parents. A few years ago, the user u/redmambo_no6 asked netizens on AskReddit: "Art teachers, what’s your 'Draw anything you want' story?" This resulted in a thread with 20K upvotes and over 2.3K comments.
Sure, a lot of time has passed since then, but painting is actually not subject to aging. Just like the irrepressible (and sometimes inappropriate) creativity of children. So, meet three dozen stories about kids' drawings, from funny to sometimes sad or just plain ridiculous.
#4
Science Teacher: Please draw a habitat of a predator
Me: Draws white van.
Image credits: anon
#5
As a kid was told to do a drawing that was gonna be put on a plate, drew my cat doing a poo. I was asked multiple times if I wanted to redo it, I declined the offer. So most of my life I ate off a plate with my cat on it doing a poo as it was my plate, and still do.
My siblings had similar plate with a car and a rocket ship, mine is clearly much better.
Was around 5 or 6 at the time and totally worth it, still have the plate.
Picture
Image credits: Brittainicus
#6
In 9th grade as an end of the year project we could basically draw whatever we wanted and we had a week to do it. Me being the little car nerd I am drew the entire drivetrain and suspension of a chevy K5 blazer.
Image credits: moist-pizza-roll
The Internet is full of advice on how to properly develop creativity in your child, but the truth is that children are already very creative—you just need to give them the opportunity to create.
As for the unconventionality and sometimes primitiveness of this creativity—don't forget that one of the best-selling and most popular artists of the 20th century, Jackson Pollock, simply used to take a can of paint and splash it on the canvas!
#7
Not my story, but seems to fit here.
When I was in school to certify to become a teacher, we had a former principal as a professor for one of our courses who was trying to illustrate how difficult it can be to manage parent complaints and how to approach those situations with administration.
His example was how he had been called into a conference once with an angry mom and the elementary school art teacher. The mom was furious because the teacher had asked the children to close their eyes and draw whatever came into their imagination. His assumption was that a student had drawn something inappropriate. Nope.
The mom was mad because summoning an image in one’s mind was “witchcraft.”.
Image credits: courderoycakes
#8
In junior high my art teacher pulled me aside to tell me that she was really impressed because I could draw better than her, after that she pretty much let me have free-reign as long as what I was drawing worked towards the lesson goal, such as shading, perspective... etc. For the end of year project, I did a Robotech VeriTech Fighter in stipple (drawn only using dots).
The next year when I would have had her again for art, she paid out of pocket for me to take an art course at the community college across the street. She was an absolutely amazing teacher!
Image credits: LogicCore
#9
I just remembered - a poor little guy who drew a self portrait. He drew with meticulous detail and when it came down to drawing his pants he drew the zipper so carefully but it looked like [male genitalia]. I was flummoxed about how to tell him that people might see something there that he didn’t intend.
Image credits: chrispyoldguy
When learning art, getting that very "eye experience" that is so important for a professional artist and designer, we take, of course, the tried and tested classical techniques and methods, but at the same time, we inevitably lose something of our own. Simply because it's always easier to take a proven method and bring it to automatism.
However, to what extent would it be possible to consider this drawing to be truly ours?
Moreover, a child often doesn't know the conventions and restrictions that we, as adults, impose on our speech, relationships, and actions. In their spontaneity, they are in many ways purer than us, and it is we, in the end, add put a humorous subtext to the drawings of our kids.
#10
My brother and his friend were five and attended an art class/club. They got to draw anything they wanted. Our dog had just died so my brother drew the dog with angel wings, a pretty good one for a five-year-old. The friend (who was a wild kid, the kind that always got detention later in his school years) drew a large wave and people escaping it. He explained that it was the tsunami of 2004 (which had just happened). The moms of the boys and the teacher were swallowing tears when they saw the drawings.
Image credits: my_young_padawan
#11
Student here. My art teacher was somewhat crazy. She let us draw anything we want and to get 100% all you had to do was tell her it "had a deep connection to the earth" or some other nonsense. I drew a jellyfish and told her it represented wisdom because it was immortal.
Image credits: _elefant_
#12
High School 1977. Not a teacher. While everyone else was drawing Pink Floyd rainbows and peace signs all over everything the biggest burnout in the class made a wide metal bracelet with intricate triangular designs cut out of it. He turned it in and got a great grade for the first project he ever bothered finishing and some well-deserved praise for his effort.
Teacher handed our work back and first thing he did was grab a pair of pliers and bent all the triangles outward making it a thick metal ***spiked*** bracelet.
I found that devilishly, disturbingly clever.
Image credits: somajones
If a child simply draws scribbles, there's no need to limit them in this. In fact, kids' scribbles are an important stage in a child's knowledge of the world through primitive creativity.
"The drawing of a four-year-old boy and the 3500-year rock carvings from Switzerland is based on the same mandala archetype we have all owned since the beginning of humanity," Roberta Pucci, an atelierista and art therapist from Italy, writes in her personal blog.
"The process of any child is based on this rich heritage. Upon that, each child will develop their personal dictionary, which I title The Spiritual Blueprint. <...> And unlike us adults – children know nothing yet about art history and do not mean to create conscious dialogues and artistic connections. They are still in the discovery phase."
#13
Not a teacher but in middle school we got an assignment in art class to draw a still life of fruit. I thought the idea was totally boring and decided to put a creative spin on it. I drew a bunch of different fruits all sitting in the seats of a colosseum watching an apple [end] an orange in the center ring. I failed the assignment, and my teacher even pulled me out in to the hallway to tell me directly that she didn’t like me or the work that I produced. Didn’t let that crush my dream though, and I kept making my assignments weirder and weirder [annoy] her.
Image credits: drawingahand
#14
It's not drawing but I gave my highschool kids a poetry assignment. They could write about anything that was school appropriate and have one curse word that wasn't a slur or the f bomb. It had to include so much figurative language, ect.
Girl turns in "ms. [My name] is a b***h", a poem about how she's tired of writing poems and that she's annoyed with me for assigning so many
Includes all requirements. I have her a 96 (a few errors) and the next poem she writes is "ms. [My name] is a cool b***h" about how she was sorry she was mean.
Image credits: thecooliestone
#15
Former student here. We were supposed to do a bit of abstract artwork for a course assignment. My work was a framed square cutout from an old T-shirt I had previously used to help re stain an old table. Not only did I get an A on the assignment, but I entered it into a silent auction later that semester and someone bought it.
Image credits: anon
The authors of this study, published on the Michigan State University website, also argue that if you give your child the freedom to express themselves through creativity, you really help them relieve stress and cope with various things, good and bad, that happen in their lives. In the end, you also help them learn through art.
"Through drawing we are attempting to show someone else what’s in our mind," Dr. Rosalind Arden of the King’s College Institute of Psychiatry reasonably claims in her research dated 2014. Well, even if these drawings look incredibly funny and absurd to adults...
#16
I rarely let them draw whatever, because they inevitably would draw predictable cliches - eighth grade boys would draw knives with blood dripping, or an eye, and girls a unicorn. Trying to get them to draw from life was tough.
Image credits: chrispyoldguy
#17
I got in trouble once for drawing a pooping butt. Little did my teacher know, but the drawing was actually a poorly drawn butterfly that ended up looking like a hairy pooping butt and when asked why I put the details I did like the legs and antenna and Proboscidea coming off the segmented body, I said “I dunno, don’t they all look like that? I saw one a recess and thought it was pretty and wanted to draw it.” Thinking of the butterfly of course. Nope, I ended up having to see the school counselor.
Image credits: BellerophonSkydiving
#18
When I was in the 7th grade our art teacher had us do whatever we wanted to be entered in the school art fair. I was really lazy and decided to just use every color of pastel that was available to draw a rainbow of sorts on a piece of construction paper. Then I tore it all into pieces and glued them all together again randomly. I called the piece, "Life" and argued that it was supposed to represent the chaos and uncertainty that is life. It ended up winning first place in my grade's part of the art fair and I ended up getting a cool art set, but really it was just me being lazy and feeding some b******t about a deeper meaning.
Image credits: -eDgAR-
Be that as it may, we sincerely believe that after you read at least half of the stories presented here, you will be in a more upbeat mood than you were at the beginning. Or, for example, you might remember something similar from your own childhood (or parenting experience) and decide to share it with us. Then please, welcome to the comments—after all, we're always happy to learn some interesting and funny stories!
#19
I can honestly say I was one of the better artists at my school, asked to draw for the paper, design t-shirts, mugs etc and voted Outstanding Senior in Art. I taught Calligraphy and one of my logos became the state logo for the state science devision.
I'm also somewhat of a smart-a*s.
We were assigned an exercise to draw our off hand (left if you're right-handed, etc). I asked the teacher 'How far would you like us to draw to?' Her response, "Well, you can draw all the way up to your elbow or cut it off at the wrist. Your choice."
So, I drew it cut it off at the wrist, with exposed bone, tissue and pooling blood.
She was real careful with her instructions after that.
Image credits: MeGrendel
#20
I have a "design your own monster" Halloween lesson. Most kids draw cute ghosts or cool vampires. One 7th grader drew a sad clown hanging by a belt from a ceilng fan. He had issues.
Image credits: MurkyYogurtcloset5
#21
Student here, pulled up pictures of severe frostbite to draw on a piece of paper in 6th grade. I wasn't allowed to do that.
Image credits: anon
#22
We had three lessons for it. I spent two and a half messing around and the last half copying an existing Bauhaus painting in chalk.
That was the only good grade I got in art class.
Image credits: anon
#23
As an art teacher and former goth teen, nothing my kids have drawn has really shocked me. I’ve had to make kids change things that are inappropriate- one time a high school girl drew a hand giving the middle finger in chalk when we were drawing outside so we changed it to a peace sign.
I did have to call home for two first graders who were drawing pooping butts while I was giving instructions. Their moms and I laughed through the entire phone call.
Image credits: method_anne
#24
Was not an art teacher but an elementary teacher. Art teacher gave the kids paper and crayons and told them to draw anything they want. Jewish kid drew a Christmas tree (twas the season). Art teacher received an angry call from his mother the next day.
Image credits: Teachernomo
#25
When I was around 8 or 9, I got into drawing cars, and simultaneously into drawing tribal decorations (probably not PC, but you know, the type a lot of people get as a tattoo), so I drew a car with tribal decal and because of the hook-like shapes in the tribal decal, I (in)appropriately named the car “The Hooker”. When she was done laughing, my mom took the time to explain the world’s oldest profession.
Image credits: TheJokr
#26
My dad was an art major. His prof assigned them a shading exercise, "Six Eggs in an Interesting Pattern".
Dad procrastinated until he was out of time, then painted 6 fried eggs in an interesting patter. Prof laughed and gave him an A.
That painting hung in our kitchen throughout my childhood.
Image credits: youngrichyoung
#27
We had a substitute art teacher once and she decided to teach us about H.R. Giger showing us concept art from the Aliens movie and such. For homework she asked us to look up more of his art, gave us a link to his main website.
Almost every single picture on the site that she hadn't printed/shown us already was of big weird alien robots penetrating women.
That was an odd assignment...
Image credits: viprus
#28
Not an art teacher, but last year the art teacher said "ok class, today you will draw what you want", then this girl decides to draw a realistic looking Freddy Fazbear. I was surprised to see any fnaf fanart look so real
Image credits: ZUCCYBOY69
#29
They were drawing stuff around Halloween, one student drew a roomba with a knife taped on it and said it was the scariest thing she could think of.
Image credits: 33arted33
#30
My art teachers story about me is that I spent an entire school year drawing and painting planes. Must have been strange.
Image credits: ImNotFromTheInternet
