Jul 14 2008
Your Budding Artist: Age 4 to 5
This last weekend, I had my niece visiting. It is an interesting prospect when you have 3 children in the house and they range in age from 6 years 11 months to 4 years 2 months to 3 years 8 months. It gives you a little perspective on how quickly children develop and it was a shining illustration for me as to how they developed as artists.
All of them decided to spend a few moments sitting around drawing pictures and I found it enjoyable to be able to look at the little artists that had turned my living room into an art studio. It really brought home the last two posts that I have made about your budding artist and it sparked my interest in finishing off the stages of art.
The stage that I am going to talk about today is the stage of art development between the ages of 4 and 5. Again, I like to stress the “range of normalcy.” I know I have said it before but it is very important to repeat this point since it can alleviate any worries for parents that may be comparing their children’s art with what I am talking about in these posts. For those of you who are just joining us, the “range of normalcy” is the normal range of age where a skill or milestone is developed. Drawing, during the early years, is separated into three stages.
“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 we have already covered scribbling and basic forms, today we are going to cover the third stage, which is the representational stage of art development. This is the stage where the first drawing is believed to take place.
Generally, the first drawing will occur during the ages of 4 and 5. Children will begin to look at the world around them and try to incorporate them into their drawings. A box is a house, a circle a face, a triangle is a roof. These basic shapes will begin to become more defined and the child will begin to create more detail in the pictures. No longer will a square simply represent a house, the square will also need windows, a door, flower pots, etc.
Also during this stage, children begin to pay more attention to the detail and will begin to make shape more representational to things in the world around them. A dog is smaller than a person so in their artwork, the dog is smaller than the person walking it.
The world is a big part of this stage of development and children will draw images from their own “world”. A child who has never seen a zebra will not draw a zebra since it does not have any symbolic meaning in their own life. They are more likely to draw items that interact with them on a daily basis. People such as friends and family, are often the first drawings, or symbols as it is often called, that a child will draw. From there the child moves onto trees, houses and other things in their world.
During this stage, as well, children will begin to label their drawings more often. You will see less artwork that is labeled after the drawing takes place and more pre-thought going into the artwork. A child will sit down and say, “I’m going to draw my dog,” before he or she starts drawing a dog.
From this stage of art development, a child moves into perfecting his or her skill in art and drawing and this improvement in basic skills will continue as long as the child continues to practice it. Art is an enjoyable pastime for any child, regardless of age and allowing them the time to explore their creative sides, is a great way to help your budding artist flourish into a creative individual.
Sirena Van Schaik
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