Children and art, fundamentals of development (by Rachel)

Here's Rachel's wonderful post I'd ask her to write for us about child art development.  We'll get some pics in there soon!

 Children and art, fundamentals of development

How children progress in Art making through stages.

In my former life I was an Art teacher, part of my education was learning how art and development start out one in the same and the different stages children go through – pretty critical in designing appropriate curriculum per age/grade. Being that I worked with children starting in kindergarten I didn't see much of the earliest stages of art making. It's been really fun watching Imogene go through this artistic development and seeing first hand how she's progressed.

“Art” is a huge part of development in humans. Studies have shown and concluded that all humans, no matter what part of the world they live in or their socioeconomic status go through the same developmental stages in drawing, this happens to start with mark making. Some of this is a factor of fine motor skill ability and cognitive changes that happen in the brain as a child understands they can manipulate their environment. Now, an individual with a developmental delay may stay in the same “art stage” that coincides with their cognitive functioning abilities and never move on to the next step. Each stage happens naturally and without any kind of adult intervention. The ages are really really general and I only put them in as a generalized average. A 4 or 5 year old could be in the “scribble” stage and still progress. There are about 6 stages of “artistic”development children go through from ages 18 months through ages 15/16.

The scribble stage (approx 18 months- age 3)

Generally, although each child is different, at around 18 months children start to become interested in “making marks” they recognize when they use a tool (crayon, marker, bath soap, paint, anything really) it makes a mark. This isn't about making anything in particular just connecting cause and effect. This goes on for about 6 months (again each child is an individual.) You will typically see a variety of marks- many look like scribbles, some look like dots. Children will do this anywhere, as it is about experimentation, “does the crayon also work on the wall? My shirt? The dog? The fridge?” Imogene at about 13 months old liked to finger paint on the kitchen floor :-) I watch a friends almost two year old from time to time and I remember him being enthralled with hitting a painted maraca on the side of my dishwasher. When I went over to stop him, I saw a sprinkling of red dots from the paint rubbing off onto the metal of the dishwasher. Needless to say, any object can be used! The marks/scribbles they make will change over time. Eventually you can observe more organized “Scribbles” and a child may start to name them and assign meaning to them. The first recognizable shape children make is called a mandala (a circle with an x through it) The first time I can remember Imogene naming a scribble was when one of her preschool teachers was pregnant and Imogene identified a little scribbled circle as “Baby Saylor.” Lines will go back and forth or up and down and may curve a little- children will also stop coloring off the paper and may try to “imitate” drawings made by someone else (for example if you are coloring with your child they may attempt to copy you or color over your drawing)

Preschematic (symbols/stories) stage (approx ages 3-4.5)

Around age 3ish children will start to become more representational. The first recognizable thing they draw is a person – I call them tadpoles or sperm because they start with a circle which typically has a face in the middle and two lines off the bottom as “legs” I had many many many 5 year olds in my kindergarten classes who still drew people that way. Children will develop other recognizable symbols- a house- a cat, things that are important to them or that they want to tell a story about-this can become involved and complex- working out issues they have with drawings. This can help them resolve problems and feel better.

Schematic stage (approx age 4-6)

Children eventually come up with a “set” of symbols and use them very orderly, the symbols are composed in the drawing with purpose. There is a baseline and all object sit on that line, usually this is the ground shown as a green line on the bottom of the picture. All other symbols are drawn over that green line. There will also be a blue strip (for sky) and a sun at the top. This style is repeated endlessly in drawing after drawing. Children will also make objects bigger and out of proportion, for example when drawing a family portrait, they may draw themselves very large and everyone else small, as they consider themselves most important. Children continue to use drawing as a way to work out issues or tell a story about themselves.

Ok, so I’m going stop here as non of our kids are older than 6 and most likely aren't showing any developmental signs past the schematic stage. I hope this was informational and that you have fun identifying some of the things your child is doing! Please feel free to post/ask any questions. I did try to be very clear although I often forget not everyone is familiar with art education :-)