Children's Art Analysis Research Paper
Children are constantly creating art – playing with colors, water colors, drawing their favorite characters and sculpting make believe objects out of play doh and clay. How is it that one child draws a recognizable picture of theirfavorite cartoon character while another child draws geometric shapes that he says is his brother but seems to share more characteristic with SpongeBob Square Pants? There are 5 different stages of art development that children go through in their elementary years: scribbling stage, preschematic stage, schematic stage and gang stage of development. Each stage has different developmental characteristics that the observer is able to pin point while analyzing the student’s work, which is exactly what this analysis research paper is all about. Over the next few pages I will breakdown and analyze the work of a student who is in the pre-schematic stage of art development. However, before I explain why I believe this student is in the pre-schematic stage it is important to understand what all of the stages of art development are.
Children start out in the scribbling stage, which usually begins around 18 months and on average ends around the age of 4. The scribbling stage is essential for the child’s art development because it is through this stage that a child first begins his hand-eye coordination. In the scribbling stage children are not drawing to make pictures but draw for the “pure enjoyment of moving their arms and making marks on a surface” (Roland, 2009). The next stage after the scribbling stage is called the pre-schematic stage, which is usually found in children ages 4-7 where they begin to form actual geometric shapes with their drawings. In the pre-schematic stage the visual idea is developed and shown however, there is not always a correlation between colors and objects and not all of the shapes make sense together. An example of the pre-schematic stage would be when a child draws a picture of a human with it’s arms and legs coming out of the head. After reviewing my student’s drawing it is between the pre-schematic stage and the next stage of development, the schematic stage. The schematic stage generally occurs between the ages of 7 and 9 where children begin to focus on more details. While in the pre-schematic stage the visual idea is developed and recognizable shapes are being formed. Within the schematic stage details begin to appear such as a nose, fingers or teeth on a person.
Analyzing my student’s artwork I believe there are characteristics that fall within the pre-schematic stage of art development, however there are details within the art that fall within the schematic stage of development as well. I believe my student is just on the cusp of moving into the schematic stage of art development. The picture that my student drew has two figures both having characteristics of being humans, which corresponds with Lowenfield’s definition of the pre schematic stage: “The preschematic stage is announced by the appearance of circular images with lines which seem to suggest a human or animal figure” (Lowenfeld, 1947). In my child’s drawing geometric shapes are starting to be used including a box, which is used for the body and arms and an oval shape, used for the second characters body and a circle for the head. Overly emphasized features are also a common characteristic of the pre-schematic stage and taking a look at the drawing the student drew the head as the largest part of the character. This makes sense because it is within this stage children will focus on the most important features and emphasize that within their drawing – the head shows where the character sees, eats, listens, and smells. “Children sometimes draw animals with too few or too many legs, or humans with six arms or with extra fingers, the fill – the – format principle seems to account for these seeming inconsistencies” (MM). Many times there is such a difference between sizes in the shapes based on a developmental reason: “The young child’s inability to coordinate her movements produces animal bodies that are too long or too short” (MM). While, this student shows pre-schematic characteristics he also shows that he could be within the schematic stage of art development as well. “We know the child is in the Schematic state (about five through nine) when his linear drawings can be identified as definite shapes of specific, recognizable forms, e.g. a man or a house” (Martin, 2001). In the pre-schematic stage the child starts to develop the geometric shapes but it is within the schematic stage that he begins to pay attention to details. The student drew shoes and shorts on both characters and colored them in. Both characters have eyes and a mouth however the second character that the student drew contained much more detail than the first character. The second character the student draws in more detail two eyes and then differentiates between the different parts of the eye – the eyelid, pupil and eye lashes. It is on this same character that the student gives the character teeth and draws fingers including the thumbs extending from the arms.
Analyzing student artwork is essential for a true understanding of where a student is developmentally: “Children’s abilities to create drawings and to understand art develop in a parallel fashion to changes in their cognitive, emotional, social, and physical growth” (Erikson and Young, pg. 38). An elementary classroom teacher needs to know if a student is within the pre schematic or gang stage or if they are still working within the scribbling stage. In each of these stages teachers are able to see how a students motor skills are working, how their hand eye coordination is developing, as well as how the student sees things – If they are able to correlate between colors and objects or if they are coloring based on pure creativity – i.e. a tree is blue or the sky is green. If a student falls within the gang range teachers need to know that their students are starting to develop self-awareness which is going to effect how they see themselves as well as they see their art – they become sensitive about their work and will feel and act differently than their classmate who falls within the pre-schematic or schematic stages. Elementary teachers need to have knowledge of and be aware of their student’s art development levels in order to encourage them effectively in their artwork and to help them grow in their understanding of the world around them and how it all works together.
Reference Page
Erikson, M., & Young, B. (1998). What every educator should (but maybe doesn't) know.
Mizzou Media - Elementary Education Art for Children, 38.
(n.d.). Learning to draw - nurturing the natural. Mizzou Media - Elementary Education Art for
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Lowenfeld, V. (1947). Creative and mental growth. Retrieved from
http://www.d.umn.edu/~jbrutger/Lowenf.html
Martin, P. P. (2001, December). Child art: A brief review of the developmental stages. Retrieved
from http://www.cyc-net.org/cyc-online/cycol-1201-martin.html
Roland, C. (2009, February 10). 1st stage of art development. Retrieved from
http://www.creativecastle.net/first-stage-of-development-scribbling/