A Doodle

The following post is taken from The Art Book For Children - Book Two, text by Amanda Renshaw, published by Phaidon, pages 10-13. Do you ever doodle when you're bored? As you add more lines and shapes, do things sometimes emerge that are recognizable as animals, birds, or even people? One day, Henry Moore was playing with a piece of wax, pushing and prodding at it with his fingers and thumbs until he thought it began to look like a strange head with horns, a beard and a long thing nose. As he kept playing with it, the shape grew a crown and became, he thought, like the head of a king. The fact that it looked more like a king's head to him than any other kind of head might have been because he'd recently been reading stories about kings, queens and princesses to his daughter Mary. When he had finished the figure with the king-like head, Moore made a body and then added another person. King and Queen started life as a small piece of wax that you could hold in your hand and became a bronze sculpture that is 5 feet, 4 inches high. It now sits near the brow of a hill in Scotland looking south over a reservoir toward the English border. Have a look at the pictures below.

King and Queen on Glenkiln Estate, Dumfriesshire, Scotland

Although this king and queen have no country to reign over, they do seem to command the beautiful landscape around them as they sit regally and serenely surveying their imaginary kingdom. Moore made the king and queen appear regal by keeping the figures simple. Their feet are placed firmly on the ground in front of them. They sit comfortably, but don't slouch, and their hands, placed on their laps and on the bench, help them to appear calm and still. Next time you start doodling, don't stop! Just imagine what it could turn into!