My eight year old daughter is crying right now. She's trying to draw manga-style comic book figures. "The eyes look stupid!" she says, "and the arms look flimsy!"
My oldest tries to calm her down, "Mollie, I'm three years older than you. Thats why my characters look so good," she says, but somehow that doesn't work and it doesn't help when my oldest says, "Mollie, guess what, I finished drawing on the whole pad? Aren't these pretty?"
I tell my youngest, "Mollie, look on the Internet and see how other artists do their eyes and arms. I bet there are some Manga artists who even have videos on how to do it."
She says, "but that's copying. I don't want to copy. I refuse."
So I tell her my favorite quote from Picasso, "Good artists copy. Great artists steal." And my oldest says, "that would mean HE stole." And I tell her that's right but still my youngest refuses to listen. She says, "I don't want to copy. I want to do something completely original." But that's impossible.
