Observation drawing with children chapters one and two

The idea that caught my eye and stayed with me the most was the idea of the three meanings found in an observational drawing. When ever I think of drawing as a narrative I immediately start to think of the typical comic strip. I want a narrative to have a beginning and an end, to tell a clear story.

According to the reading a narrative can be a single simple fame and can convey the same message which it goes on later to show with a great example which is a very common thing drawn by children. For some reason I've always believed narratives to be too complicated for children which the more I think about it is a ridiculous assumption. Since they were able to talk my nieces have told me stories, non-stop, seemingly endless stories about the most mundane things you could think of, and these stories are also shown in their drawings.

The meaning as a metaphor reminded me of the symbolic art drawn by younger children on a much more sophisticated level. The younger child's art may look like something crazy and incomprehensible but represent a very real thing, while the art in this book is a very real item that may represent something intangible, such as a baseball glove representing the love of a father. This is something that I have not seen very much of in children's art but more in the art of adolescents and usually high school students.
The last meaning, expressive, is something with which I have always struggled with. It is a style that amazes me, the idea that you can convey so much emotion through an image is amazing, but not something that I fully understand. Hopefully through this experience I will gain a greater understanding as to why everyone, at least in this culture, interprets a certain type of line to be angry, or playful, or sad.