A recent study adds to the mounting “evidence” of the existence of animal emotion. I am blushing at the complete lunacy of that first sentence—any intelligent being, human or otherwise, who has spent even a brief moment of consciousness with another species knows that “animals have emotions.” I understand that such studies do not always reflect the underlying intent of particular researchers whose goal is not to determine whether in fact animals have emotions but instead to contribute to the requisite data pool in support of such a theory so that other more important work on behalf of animals can be done, like improvements to the slaughter industry. How difficult it must be for such aware scientists to maintain composure for the purpose of long-range goals when presenting their results in support of the “theory” of animal emotion.
But I’m interested in a different matter, which is to capture animal emotions when drawing for children, the ones who are most clued in to the truth about animal emotions. So how to draw animal emotions? Although animals clearly emote, many do so in ways that are quite different from our human methods. Take the inscrutable rabbit, for example. If you watch a rabbit for a while you will see that her facial expression rarely changes in a way recognizable to a human. But she will offer plenty of other emotion cues:
- Her eyes will glass over and her ears will lay back if she is relaxing.
- Her nose will twitch rapidly if she is trying to ascertain what you are about or where that smell is coming from.
- She will begin honking if she finds you upsetting or exciting.
- She will yawn if she is tired.
- She may nip you if she wants your attention or finds you annoying.
- She will begin doing wild happy hops if she is feeling joyful.
- She will stand up on her hind legs if she is curious or on the lookout.
These cues (with the exception of sound cues) are easy enough to capture in a drawing. A rabbit’s ears alone can convey a range of emotions. Many people know how to read the body language of dogs and cats, and so we can figure out easily enough that if we draw a dog with its eyes closed and its tongue hanging out, we convey calmness and happiness. And simply drawing a cat’s face head-on with round eyes will suggest his intent to pounce.
But even if a person looking at such drawings knows nothing about the emotions or the means of expression of the particular type of animal being portrayed, a basic instinct kicks in and the viewer understands immediately what the animal is feeling. (Conduct an experiment if you need to collect data on this.)
