Friday Rorschach: The Poison Frogs

This is one of my son's drawings from the beginning of kindergarten.

What it actually is: I strategically cropped this picture before I posted it on Facebook and Twitter. Here is the full drawing, with my son's caption:

If you can decypher his writing, he titled the drawing, "The Poison Frog." I didn't want this to discourage the creativity of your answers, which is why I initially cropped out the writing.

My son told me the three green frogs are the poison frogs. He said two of them are sitting on branches and one of them is climbing the tree. The brown, yellow, and blue object at the bottom of the picture is a "regular tree frog" that is hopping. He said he wanted it to have "fancy" freckles. He did not know why all of the frogs are smiling.

The red mark toward the right of the picture is a leaf. He said the yellow and blue colors on the right were either "a reflection from the sun" or "I don't know." The blue on the left is "a decoration" for the tree.

What you thought it was: Just about everyone commented on the frogs. And, most people saw some sort of movement and action in the drawing. But, there were mixed reactions in terms of what that action was.

Some saw the action as conflictual:

@mwachtel The flies have decided to eat the frogs for revenge.
— Facenna (@Facenna) January 17, 2014

Others saw the action as cooperative:

@mwachtel Toad playing with his frogg buddies. #kidsdrawing #FridayRorschah
— Ryan (@RyanDriehuys) January 17, 2014

Still others saw the action as fairly neutral:

@mwachtel A bat flying under frogs in a tree with dawn breaking.
— Michael Cumpton (@mccumpton) January 17, 2014

At least one person saw the action as both aggressive and cooperative/loving:

@mwachtel A mother frog climbing out of a cave to rescue her two baby frogs from being eaten by a lynx. #FridayRorschach
— safa nadira (@Nadira_Rahm) January 17, 2014

Some people chose to ignore what most people saw as frogs and instead went for answers that stretched the boundaries of the forms in the drawing (to be fair to the troll response, several people saw this as a bridge/troll picture):

@mwachtel The Cactus-people and Sasquatch, decided to play a heartfelt game of 'King of the Mountain' on #FridayRorschach
— Dustin P. (@DPumpWORD) January 17, 2014

@mwachtel @RyanDriehuys easy! 3 billy goats gruff with troll under bridge :)
— katrina grayson (@trinabobbles) January 17, 2014

@mwachtel I'm a celebrity get me out of here.
— Astri JS Kvassnes (@AstriJSKvassnes) January 17, 2014

One person chose to include a pop culture reference (one that gave me a nightmare after I saw the movie, by the way):

RT @kevinldowning: Spider scene in Desolation of Smaug. #FridayRorschach
— Dr. Max Wachtel (@mwachtel) January 17, 2014

And, one person chose to incorporate this Sunday's AFC Championship Game into her answer:

@mwachtel Tom Brady on the ground?
— Leanne Milliman (@librarian5280) January 17, 2014

What you might have missed: Most people did not mention the red, blue, and yellow colors on the right side of the drawing. And, no one mentioned anything about the coloring that was outside of the lines. In fact, no one mentioned the rectangle framing the picture. No one mentioned the expressions on the frog's faces.

Thanks for reading. Until next Friday-- Max Wachtel, Ph.D.
www.maxwachtel.com
www.twitter.com/mwachtel
www.facebook.com/drmaxwachtel
www.youtube.com/drmaxwachtel

Friday Rorschach is a fun project designed to engage readers' creativity. To participate, follow Max on twitter. He posts the drawing every Friday morning around 10am ET/8am MT. There are no wrong answers to the Friday Rorschach.

Posted in: Friday Rorschach