If you remember, I have already posted about the development of artistic skill already. If you haven’t read it yet or need a refresher, you can read it here.

Just to recap a few things, when I talk about any type of development, I am really looking at a “range of normalcy.” I know that I have mentioned this before but for anyone new that is joining us, I really like to reiterate my points. “Range of normalcy” is a term used to describe an average age range when a child develops a skill or reaches a milestone.

“With art, as with all milestones, a child may fall before or after the range of normalcy. I have seen 5 year olds that are only beginning to grasp the ability to form simple shapes; a skill generally developed between 3 to 4 years and I have also seen 3 year olds using symbolic representation, a skill usually developed at 4 or 5.” -this was taken from my first blog on the first stage of art: Scribbling.

Since I have already written about the first stage, scribbling, I am going to move on to the second stage called Basic Forms.

This stage usually occurs between the ages of 3 and 4 and again, some children may experience this stage sooner or later than what is the expected “range of normalcy.”

Much like the scribbling stage, I probably don’t need to really define what I mean by basic shapes. This is the stage where children begin moving away from scribbles and start forming shapes such as circles, ovals, and all the other shapes that are the staple of geometry.

This is also the stage where children are gaining more control over their fine motor and hand-eye coordination skills. Things are happening both physically and intellecutally which is enabling him to create more concrete drawings and more controlled strokes with the pencil and/or brush.

Like scribbling, this stage is still a very experimental stage in art. It is a gradual progression of experimenting with the lines that he is creating on the page and you will see it throughout that year. The first part of his 3rd year, he will draw circles and ovals and then he will progress into creating the curved line. This can often be referred to as the rainbow stage (at least by me) and I remember with my oldest, his love of drawing rainbows with any type of medium that I gave him. Rainbows was where he saw true manipulation of his lines and it pleased him to not only create one curved line but many connected to each other in a layered pattern. My youngest son is at this stage right now and I am back to a world of rainbows once again.

After he has learned to control his drawings, a child will begin drawing more complex forms such as squares and rectangles.

Also in this stage, a child begins to understand that what he is thinking and feeling is responsible to what he is placing on the paper. He is not going to sit down and say, “I’m going to draw a 5 star hotel with ocean vistas,” but he will sit down and draw a tower of squares. When he is finished, he will often tell you what he drew but it is usually a end thought. Sort of like, “My picture looks like a truck so that is what I drew.”

After this stage is the third and final stage that occurs between 4 and 5. This is considered to be the stage where the child’s first drawings take place and it is the stage where representational art begins.

Until then, I hope you enjoyed this post on your budding artist and I hope that you have already filled your shelves with art materials.

Sirena Van Schaik

Tags: age 3 to 4, Art, Art development, basic forms, child development, Early Childhood Education, Preschool Development, scribbling, stages of art

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