Jeremy "UncleHoot" Praay wrote:

> 
> Any advice?  Tips? 
> 

Not a parent, just a guy who's old enough to have seen a lot of kids 
around me grow up and who knows a few professional artists.

I have come to believe that a parent's role is to ensure his child has 
the maximum number of choices available to her when she becomes an 
adult. Most of the teenagers I know aren't going to have many choices in 
adulthood because they have been given too many as children. They are 
crippled by distraction and laziness. Those who seem to be surviving the 
MySpace/PlayStation/CellPhone/XBox/Facebook epidemic are those who are 
engaged in disciplined, competitive activities. Art without discipline 
is poisonous. So what if it fosters creativity? Text messaging fosters 
creativity -- "sexting" especially I would think.

I believe absolutely that a human being is designed to hunt for his 
supper and, if not given the opportunity to do so, will almost always 
become insane and depressed. I wouldn't let my daughter just /have/ 
drawing anymore than I would let her just /have/ money. I would subject 
her to an appropriate amount of honest criticism of her work. Laziness, 
even intellectual or creative laziness, is more debilitating than 
smoking. How would you react if you caught her smoking? Afraid she'll 
quit drawing if you don't "support" her failures? Why is no one afraid 
his daughter will quit academics if he doesn't support her failures in 
that area?

On the practical end, I would suggest buying her many technical books on 
drawing. I don't draw, but I imagine it's much like POV-Ray in that the 
mastering of technical skills increases the development speed of 
artistic skills. We've all spent weeks laying a (too solid) foundation 
for a creative idea that didn't pan out. Had we properly parameterized 
that foundation, we could have tried several artistic ideas in the same 
amount of time. Of course, one can go too far in that direction as well.

  -Shay

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