From first scribbles to complex country scenes, your child goes through numerous stages. Decription.
The main steps
Just as with learning to walk, learning to draw varies from one child to another.
- Under age 2: scribbles are born along with motor skills. The child is fascinated by the possibility of leaving a permanent line. His entourage is interested in his production, reacts… a supplementary relationship is established between them, through these first "drawings".
- From age 2: the eye guides the line, the child handles the pencil better. He reproduces his first forms (circles, lines) and give them a significance. His works reflect his perception of reality.
- Ages 3 to 5: schooling helps him pass through many stages. He masters various forms, discovers verticality. He becomes familiar with compositions, with several subjects (people, house, sun, etc.), sometimes recorded in a summary: sky, grass... Colors advance in realism. Subjects are rendered facing us, proportions are not acquired: he makes large whatever is important in his eyes.
- from 6 to 8: he expands his repertoire of forms and launches into thematic drawing. Proportions are more accurate, but spatial logic is not respected: animals can be seen in profile while characters face front! The relationship between subjects sharpens, details multiply.
- Starting at age 9: the subject enjoys a structured environment, with a horizon line, ground and sky an integral part of the drawing. The drawing becomes organized, the size of the subjects takes into account their remoteness. The child works in profiles, and perspectives and begins to represent objects from various angles.
Tip: Locate a future artist!
Eight is regarded as the age when the children showing a disposition for graphics produce more detailed and more imaginative drawings. They favor this mode of expression and progress rapidly. From age 12, they continue to develop, while their comrades are abandoning the pencil due to a lack of rewarding results.
The stick figure: witness the evolution
- Age 2-3: the famous stick figure is composed of a circle, possibly adorned with eyes, a nose and a mouth. 2 to 4 sticks are the limbs.
- Toward 4 to 5 years old: with a round head, an oval trunk, the person, provided with 4 stick limbs, is recognizable. Details appear: fingers (in various numbers), feet, hair or belly button.
- Ages 5-7: clothing, hair length differentiated between boys and girls. The mouth displays expression (smile, sadness).
- from 8 or 9 years: the limbs, articulated, gain in volume. Ears appear, eyes with eyelashes and pupils. The child begins to draw people viewed from the side. These first profiles may, for a time, contain supernumerary elements, for example the two eyes, before gradually gaining in realism. At this stage, the child has all basics… the rest is only a matter of observation and work.
Tip: From drawing to writing
In kindergarten, learning writing is supported by learning drawing. It is, for example, by drawing bridges and waves that the child discovers the cursive writing of "m" and "n". The different stages of learning are concomitant: he draws his initials at the age of the stick figure, writes his first name in stick letters when his characters have a head and a body, etc.
Recommended product:
White drawing paper
