Jun 20, 2011
5 pieces of art by children with autism
Selections from the book Drawing Autism…
Werewolf
By Wout Devolder, age 14
On May 8, 2008, my nephew Ben and my niece Sanne died in a fire. I was very sad and desperate. Because I didn’t have words to express my despair, I drew this werewolf.
Changing Seasons
By Josh Peddle, age 12
Pals
By Wil C. Kerner, age 12
From his grandma:
The key in understanding Pals is the brown rimmed off-white donkey ear. Four facial expressions depict the bad boys turning into donkeys in the movie Pinocchio: purple-faced Pinocchio is stunned by his new ear and considering what to do; it’s too late for the horrified yellow face; the green trapezoid is oblivious to his pending fate; the blue head is looking away hoping he’s not included.
Imaginary City Map
By Felix, 11
Generally I start drawing one street on different spots on the edge of my paper. I make the streets grow toward one another.… I study road maps and atlases in detail and generally I scroll the full track of our trips on Google Earth.
Vogels
By David Barth, age 10
From David’s mom…
His drawings often represent his current obsessions.… [I]t’s not hard to guess what’s keeping him busy right now. There are almost 400 birds on it and he knows the names and Latin names of most of them.
(I found these pieces at 50 Watts where there are also some works by autistic adults.)
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Extraordinary!
super art.i love the explanations.Great gifts these folks have!Inspiring!
Very intriguing compositions for such young kids, most likely with no advanced design education, though I could be wrong.
Most folks attempting an illustration like Vogels would naturally depict the birds looking in a variety of directions, and many would be looking off the page, which leads your eye off the page (bad). David arranges them to circulate your eye around the page as you follow what they birds are looking at.
Wil also uses implied lines from eyesight in Pals, as well as using pointing arrow-like shapes to direct the eye – again, possibly without having any formal training on leading the eye. If he has received formal design training, he shows it. Of course, the description provided by “grandma” reveals a surprising and very complex understanding of conceptual unity, and how to illustrate concepts and emotions. This one is the most interesting of these examples in my opinion. Many “smart” people in our society could not come close to this level of creativity and divergent thinking – and most certainly could not recognize it, either.
Genius comes in many forms, and sometimes it goes unnoticed or is misinterpreted. There’s more going on here than meets the eye. Good job, kids.
“Smart”, eh? There are some autistic folks who are the smartest and most creative people I know. We’re just looked down upon for reacting to our hypersensitive nerves or for calming ourselves through things like fidgets. I can grok languages like none other, but I can’t touch chalk. A buddy of mine is a virtuosic musician, but has uncontrollable panics. Everyone’s got a limit somewhere.
I honestly had no idea people generalized autistic folks as less intelligent.
JTO,
I think you have misread my comment.
I think these kids’ artwork is brilliant, and would often be unnoticed or dismissed by others.
I put “smart” in quotation marks for this very reason. Intelligence of this nature often goes unnoticed or is mislabeled by general society. What society considers “smart” is suspect.
In other words, many “smart” people would consider these kids to be flawed, when in reality, these kids posses a level of intelligence most of society will never know of.
And, yes, some people to generalize autistic folks as less intelligent – but I’m NOT one of them. I think quite the opposite, so please don’t put that on me.
Love the Vogels piece.
This artwork is fabulous! I just came across an exhibition of artwork and poetry done by a child with autism named Trevor. His art and poetry is being displayed at the San Ramon Community Center located on Alcosta Street in San ramon. It is really wonderful work! Does anyone know of a publisher who would be interested in putting together a book with artwork by children wih autism?
Geez, I wish I could draw like that…
that werewolf one, just says something without saying anything at all.
The Imaginary City Map reminds me of old Aztec art.
The Imaginary city map and Vogel are amazing…
I’ve studied art in college and i remember once another class had this theme where they had to draw an imaginary city map. I must say this kid’s composition is better than some of what i’ve seen there. But all of the drawings are amazingly good, these kids have serious talent.