Holly: Art Explained

Seriously, I reckon Holly is a very good artist. She loves drawing and seems to really put a great deal of thought into the pictures she does. Her disability may limit her freedom of movement but it doesn't seem to stop her (at five years old) really wanting to express herself in this way. She's always really pleased with the results of these drawing sessions.

How we do it is I sit with her and give her choice of all the crayons (I bought some plastic coated ones which are perfect for her and she cannot snap them - she's a bit heavy handed) for the colour. Then I hold her hand and assist while she does the actual drawing – basically keeping her from losing her grip on the crayon. I also ask her which bit of the paper she wants to aim for – or she tells me if I’m doing something wrong.

She obviously has a limited range of ability but she can do sqiggles, lines, small circles or long sweeps and she tends to do just one of these things per drawing. She finishes each colour quickly, often not having done much at all with it, and moves on to the next choice. She’ll use 3 or 4 colours maximum per drawing and does not just scrawl randomly – she tries for instance not to overlap the colours and obvioulsy has a specific pattern in mind for each new piece of paper. She was all purple and oranges on the last session, with the odd splash of red, brown or black. That was all she used out of 15 coloured crayons. She is very decisive about when each one is finished too and never goes back to it. Given a sheet of A4 she only ever does enough to fit the frame size we've been using which has been 5 x 7 inches, and this goes for painting too: When she has the opportunity to splash paint round a large sheet of paper she always keeps her efforts neatly confined to a relatively small area.

Though there are many things which make me think “what if …” with Holly, this activity is one where I know she gets a lot of satisfaction from, especially when she sees the pictures in the frames. It’s a “look what I can do” thing I reckon.

I've quite a few of her efforts framed now and they are really good bits of work. I love them.