Drawing in order to imagine

Jonathan sketching

Drawing is a form of entertainment that goes way, way back in the history of humans. It's also a powerful tool for imagination. Computer and AI assisted animation are simply advanced forms of imaginative drawing. I like to use drawing in service of the imagination by drawing what I'd like to see in a narrative.

My son Jonathan enjoys movies and imaginitive adventure. So Saturday night before bed, I told him we could get our shared big sketchbook off the book shelf and imagine we were going on an adventure. I asked him what we should start with. "Draw a jeep," he said. So I drew a jeep driving down a rugged path. Jonathan then drew some trees. He asked me to draw some dinosaurs; a dilophosaurus spitting green venom, a brachiosaurus eating leaves, Dakota Raptor running through the trees, a pterodactyl sauring in the air.

"Draw an Indominus Rex," he asked after all the others. "Cool!" was his response when I sketched something vaguely resembling the movie monster, with its gaping, toothy mouth and spikes covering its back and head. Next I was asked to draw three diamonds in red, blue and green and three kids representing his cousins and him fleeing the dinosaurs.

In the end, our adventure took us to a scary place where all ended well. We enjoyed a sense of awe at the amazing creatures we saw there.

"Next time," I told him, "we can imagine we are going on a pirate adventure and we'll draw a ship."

"Okay. Sounds good," was his response. We then put away the sketchbook and pencils and read some bed time stories.

Monday morning, Jonathan asked, "Papi, when you get home from work today, can we go on that pirate adventure?"

"Of course! I can't wait."

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