Lines can be as stale as talk. A friend excitedly tells you a brilliant insight or idea he’s just had right there and there in front of you AND another time he recites a thought he’s regurgitated twenty six times before. Can you tell the difference?

Can you tell the difference between a child making lines on a paper to represent a face AND a grown-up, who has made marks on paper for twenty years, and who tries to draw like a child, for let’s say an advertisement? We can tell a kid didn’t do it. The old guy’s lines are contrived. The muscles in his hand and arm repeat old movements just as they do in his handwriting.

Many of the artists we find in art history books have collected children’s art for this freshness. We as adults love being with small children because we can see the world as NEW through their eyes and we’re delighted at the fresh word combinations they discover as they try to explain what they see.

One of the lines in the picture below is tired, can you see which one? I’d say it’s the red circular line representing the outer eye on the left side of the page.

Reading great books can help us see life as new as do great pieces of art.  nancymauerman.com

Elisabeth