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

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

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

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.