As I’ve mentioned before, much of my boys’ creative activity is increasingly being carried out independently from me these days. They’ll find the stuff they want and get on with it, often without my knowledge. Once finished, they’ll sometimes bring the completed work to me, and explain at length exactly what’s going on. Other times I’ll come across something myself later, abandoned in their bedroom.

That was the case with this drawing of a robot done by my 7 year old. Lots of his drawings relate to action and adventure, with Star Wars being a particularly popular theme at the moment. I love the way he’s annotated the drawing (complete with wonky spelling) with things such as ‘lazer eyes’ and ‘sharp crushing teeth’. It’s all a far cry from the kind of things I used to draw at that age from what I can remember. I’ve noticed he often seems to draw as a form of storytelling or narrative, and while if he’s asked to sit down and write a story for school he sits there ‘stuck’ not knowing what to write, he has no trouble at all when it comes to drawing it.

I tend to scan the better pieces of artwork into the computer to keep (if you are under the impression that this then allows me to throw away the original, then you’d be entirely wrong, I can never bear to actually throw them away, though I am getting more discriminating these days!) On this occasion, I wasn’t planning to do any more than that, but seeing it on the computer screen inspired me to take it a little further – I thought it was just begging to be presented as a working drawing or blueprint for an ‘Attack Robot’.

I’m considering adding this kind of transformation to the range of services I offer for children’s artwork at Artful Kids, because I think a blueprint of this kind would look really good as a canvas or framed print in a child’s room. But then it would only work with this particular kind of annotated drawing, and I’m not sure how common this is as a type of children’s art. What do you think? Do your children produce annotated drawings like this?