Home » Helpfulness

Little artists: what children’s drawings tell us – baby and family

Little artists: what children’s drawings tell us

Paper and a few pens – that’s all you need to create a work of art. All children go through typical phases of drawing. Five boys and girls show their pictures

More than just colorful doodles: pictures are also a way for children to communicate

When the baby sloughs creatively with his porridge, many parents don’t find it funny. But: it actually shows an early form of artistic expression. "For the first time, children perceive that they can create something and express themselves", says Professor Monika Miller, art teacher at the University of Education in Ludwigsburg. As soon as the little ones can use pens, they start to scribble – and develop their drawing skills in typical development steps. Monika Miller uses five children’s drawings to explain how these work. We had boys and girls paint their families for this:

Hannah, 2 years and 11 months:
"In the scribble phase, the hand whizzes uncontrollably over the paper. We call the result chop doodles. The more pronounced the fine motor skills are, the finer and more targeted the pen will be. This can be seen wonderfully in Hannah’s picture: In addition to momentum-
and she is already drawing zigzags in circular movements. At the bottom right in orange you can already see a so-called big ball, from which the first forms will soon emerge.

Typical in the scribble phase: the little artist has no relation to the sheet, she knows no top and bottom, the paper is rotated back and forth as desired. She tries out the material, uses different colors, maybe has a favorite color. All of this happens without a concrete idea of ​​what she wants to put on paper. Experts speak of meaningful presentation. The child tells you what he is painting when asked, but five minutes later it can be something else. Individual forms can stand for something concrete, a line for an apple, for example."

Lucia, 4 years:
"So-called communicative images emerge from haphazard scribbling. The child can assign meaning to the trace it leaves on paper and also communicate it. The cephalopods are typical. Children draw a person the way they perceive themselves when they look down on themselves. They just see their arms and legs.

What is striking about Lucias cephalopod: eyes, nose and mouth are clearly visible. She also painted something around her mouth, maybe a mustache. The cephalopod also has a wonderful hairstyle. The arms have fingers, but just many. Works of art by children always show what is important to the little ones at the moment of drawing: Lucia was probably immersed in the details of the face and did not care about color.

In this phase, the sheet increasingly serves as an orientation surface for children. The objects are now arranged side by side, the legs point downwards. However, the figure is still floating in the room."

Ben, 4 years and 9 months:
"Ben is currently in the schema phase. This means that he now has a more pronounced sense of the pictorial order. The figures stand firmly on the lower edge of the picture, at the top the sky limits the drawing. Ben masters geometric shapes such as circles and rectangles and uses them specifically as head and torso. Characteristic: children always draw people’s belly buttons for a certain time.

Ben also enjoys putting the geometric shapes into patterns. They appear in various places in his picture. They were very important to him, for example he forgot to paint people’s arms. Only one figure has a mouth. A very typical feature of this phase: what is essential for the child, paints it particularly large or gives it a lot of space.

Very interesting about Ben’s picture: he mixes the different room systems. The stripe on the right could be a street that Ben has painted from above. The figures, however, were drawn from the front."

Magdalena, 6 years and 1 month:
"A typical picture of a preschooler. You can clearly see that Magdalena has fully developed the schemes for a person: her two figures have heads, necks, torsos, arms with hands and fingers, legs with feet. But she has also provided her people with many other details: The left figure has a breast, for example, the eyes of the two have pupil, iris color and eyelashes and different hairstyles. It is also typical of this age that Magdalena is not yet the most "right one" Color used: The ears are about green and red.

What we also find in many drawings of this age: the corner sun. We don’t know why children love to paint them. The broad, bold green strip shows what is coming next in development: perspective drawing."

Isabelle, 4 years and 6 months:
"Isabelle’s picture shows that children of the same age often paint very differently. Your drawing could also be from a preschooler. The sky above and a strip of grass below clearly limit the image area. Isabelle can already count because her figure has five fingers.

The detailed drawing of the face is very striking: the nose, for example, is already quite plastic. The eyes have a pupil and eyelashes. Isabelle tries to reproduce her observations exactly. The accurately drawn Germany flag also fits. The heart that the little artist painted of her figure is very impressive. There are various reasons why children draw very carefully earlier than others. Some are further in their development or simply more experienced in drawing."

Three questions for our expert

Every child has to draw?
No. Some children prefer to do other things. However, art is a means of communication. Therefore, parents should support them by providing materials and giving their child space and time to do so.

What are coloring books good for??
Nothing. Children also practice coloring while painting freely. That is quite enough.

How do parents know that their child is talented??
At these three points: 1. The child starts drawing much earlier than others and paints recognizable shapes at the age of two. 2. The child constantly paints and sinks completely into the activity. 3. The child develops much faster than his peers and is more imaginative.

Related Posts

artists children drawings little
Like this post? Please share to your friends:
Christina Cherry
Leave a Reply

;-) :| :x :twisted: :smile: :shock: :sad: :roll: :razz: :oops: :o :mrgreen: :lol: :idea: :grin: :evil: :cry: :cool: :arrow: :???: :?: :!: