How was Rashad's ability to break away from Aaron Douglas' signature style representative of Rashad's coming of age?

Drawing is one of Rashad's favorite pastimes. He uses his talent to illustrate his interpretation of race. In the hospital, Rashad explains his inspiration for drawing. His first comic, The Family Circus, is a single, circular frame about a white family who lives, as he puts it, an uneventful life, and he is amazed at how simple their life is. Over the course of time, the changes in Rashad's illustrations convey his coming of age.... his maturation.

In Aspects of Negro Life by Aaron Douglas, Douglas creates characters who are clearly black, but a layer of fog covers their faces, leaving their characteristics hidden. As Rashad sits in bed healing his injuries, he draws a single frame of a boy with his hands up, but the boy is covered in fog..... illustrating and learning from his own experience.