Tiarnan's first adventures in Art

There is something spooky about Tiarnan in that he does things which, if done deliberately would appear to be remarkable - but, we are left to judge - was it deliberate or was it accidental?

This phenomenon occurs when Tiarnan is given a pencil and paper. We have only recently done this. He holds the pencil firmly in his fist but, interestingly, does not scribble on the paper. He applies the pencil to the paper, with control. The first time I saw him do this he drew a heart-shape - and a square: both recognizable. Was that deliberate or not? We have no way of knowing.

Yesterday, however, with his mother, he added a single line to a drawing she had done. Now, again, we are left to wonder at the coincidence of it. Did he intend the line - or was it lucky happenstance? You see my wife had drawn a face without a neck. Tiarnan added a single line. It was not a straight line but one which bent in a rather apt fashion. The odd thing is where he put the line. He drew it in exactly in the right position so that it completed the drawing and gave the face a neck and suggested a chest below. I didn't see him do this. So, when I saw the drawing, I complimented my wife on the interesting way she had drawn the neck. "I didn't do that...Tiarnan did."

That could just be miraculous luck. However, it should be noted that he controlled the pencil very well - it was not a scribble, but a carefully placed line, that looked like it had been fashioned by my wife.

What happened next is, however, very clearly deliberate and indicates Tiarnan's state of mind with regards to exploring Art.

He took each coloured pencil in turn and drew the same straight line on paper, for each one. He did so methodically, drawing one line for each colour and studied the result. He also drew some of them with his left hand and some with his right as if trying to decide which hand was better for this task.

It was interesting to note that he drew the same line with each one: it was as if he wanted to compare the appearance produced by each pencil, by controlling other variables (like what he actually drew). Again, he didn't scribble. Each line was carefully controlled.

So what do we have here? We have a baby who doesn't scribble when given a pencil, but draws careful lines. He is thirteen months old. Could he be an artist, in the making?

(If you would like to read more of Tiarnan, thirteen months, or his gifted brothers, Ainan Celeste Cawley, seven years and three months, a scientific child prodigy, or Fintan, three, then please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of child prodigy, IQ, gifted education, intelligence, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)