The Drawing Path for Children - Duet Software · 3. “Shells” by Megan (age 3) 30 4. “Portrait...

Sample pages from

The Drawing Path for Children

by Bob Steele

First excerpt: pages 1-19 includes table of contents and a major part of Part One: Spontaneous Drawing in Early Childhood Second excerpt: pages 38-47 from Part Two: Motivating Themes for Authentic Drawing

The Drawing Path

for Children

Bob Steele

Drawing Network Publications

© 2011 Bob Steele All rights reserved. Except as noted, no part of this publication may be reproduced by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN 978-0-9868230-1-5 First printing, September 2011 Published by Drawing Network Publications 3853 West 15th Avenue Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6R 3A1 Printed in Canada by Maranda Digital Print Inc. Front Cover art: Dragon Parade by Hogan (age 7)

Contents

List of Drawings 4 Preface 7 The Drawing Network 9 About the Author 10 Acknowledgements 10 Part One: Spontaneous Drawing in Early Childhood 11

Holistic Language for Whole Children and a Healthy Society 12 Drawing as a Language Medium in the Pre-School Years 13 The Beginning of Language: Making Marks on Paper 17 From Scribble to First Representation 21 Establishing a Daily Draw at Home Part 1: Theory 23 Part 2: Two Examples 31 The Content of Drawing: Perceptions, Thoughts and Feelings 34

Part Two: Motivating Themes for Authentic Drawing 37 Motivating Themes for Authentic Drawing 38 1. Visualization and Guided Imagery 38 2. Motivating Themes with the Model Present 39 3. Motivating Themes from Memory - Past Events 44 4. Motivating Themes from Memory - Programmed Subjects 46 5. Motivating Themes That Feature Feelings and Emotions 48 6. Motivating Themes of Fantasy and Imagination 52 7. Field Trips to Stimulate Empathic Drawing 52 8. Line Drawing from Photographs and Works of Art 53 9. Motivating Themes to Solve Problems 53 10. Motivating Themes in Physical Education and Dance 53 11. Using the Comic Strip Format 54 12. Drawing More than Once from the Same Theme 55 School Visits and Class Field Trips 57 Madge Answers a Question 60 Part Three: Drawings of Intense Feeling and Emotion 65 Twelve Drawings of Intense Feeling and Emotion 66 A Tribute to Sue Leung 86 Two Horrific Drawings: One Positive, One Negative 90

Drawings Part One: Spontaneous Drawing in Early Childhood

1. From scribble to representation 20 2. Cameron draws his family by Cameron (age 4) 22 3. “Shells” by Megan (age 3) 30 4. “Portrait of Mary and Bob” by Megan (age 3) 33

Part Two: Motivating Themes for Authentic Drawing 5. * “Hercules and the Hydra” by Blake (age 10) 36 6. “Fading Sunflower” by an unknown child (age 10) 41 7. “A Visit to a Spawning Stream” by Hania (age 10) 43 8. “Dragon Parade” by Hogan (age 7) 45 9. “My Bedroom” by Zoe (age 6) 47 10. “At Lunch”, by an unknown child (age 8) 49 11. “The Sea of Puns” by Danny (age 8) 51

* indicates drawings that are not referenced in the text. These drawings are located on otherwise blank pages facing Parts Two, Six and Eight and on pages 105 and 179.

Part Four: Reports from Parents and Teachers 95 Part Five: The Hidden Order of Art - Aesthetic Energy 107 Aesthetic Structure in Children’s Drawings 108 Drawings to Illustrate ‘The Hidden Order of Art’ 112 Three Drawings by Jaclyn, Age 5 134 Part Six: Comic Strips for Language Development 139 Drawing Comic Strips for Language Development 140 Part Seven: Drawing in Social Studies—The Mayan Project 147 The Mayan Project: a Model for Integrated Studies 148 Part Eight: Drawing in Science Education 157 The Garden - Source for Art and Science 158 Drawing in Science Education: Examples 162

12. “The whale rescues them in a storm” by Alexis (age 9) 54 13. “What Terry Saw” by Robert (age 8) 55 14. “Violinists” by students from L. Picciotto’s class 58 15. “A really sad time” by Vincent (age unknown) 61

Part Three: Drawings of Intense Feeling and Emotion 16. “Sleeping With Mom” by Jane (age 5) 64 17. “Terry Fox Wus Brave” by Robert (age 8) 68 18. “And I Tried to Sleep” by an anonymous primary child 69 19. “Parade” by Geoff (age 10) 71 20. “The Forest” by Michael (age 8) 72 21. “God Above the Battle” by Tyler (age 6) 74 22. “Holiday Excursion to Alaska” by Martin (age 4) 75 23. “Pak’s Chicken Farm” by Pak (age 6) 76 24. “Mad At James” by Geoffrey (age 5) 77 25. “Land of the Silver Birch” by Natasha (age 10) 78 26. “At the Swimming Pool” by Martin (age 6) 79 27. “Canadian Boat" by Hiro (age 4) 80 28. Two Figures in an Emotional State by David (age 5) 81 29. “Caged Dog by an unknown kindergarten child 83 30. “Battle” by Parsa (age 10) 84 31. “Olympic Figure Skating Competition” by Rachel (age 9) 87 32. “Olympic Speed Skating Competition” by Alice Man (age 11) 89 33. “Attacked by Sea Monsters” by Laura (age 5) 90 34. “I’m going to kill you” by an anonymous primary boy 93

Part Four: Reports from Parents and Teacher 35. * “Flowers” by Marcus (age 7) 105

Part Five: The Hidden Order of Art - Aesthetic Energy 36. Boat Holiday” by Zion (age 6) 106 37. twenty-one gulls from “Boat Holiday” 113 38. “Lucy Was Tired Now” Joanne (age 6) 115 39. “Raising the Totem Pole” by Cathy (age 6) 117 40. “Attacking the Snake” by David (age 6) 119 41. “Reindeer” by Stephanie (age 6) 120 42. “Santa and His Reindeer” by Brendan (age 5) 122 43. “Dragon Parade” by Hogan (age 7) 123

44. “Visiting the Aquarium” by Sammy (age 13) 125 45. “Battle with Archers” by Parsa (age 10) 126 46. “Jordan and Her Mother Ride Their Unicorn” by Jordan (age 6) 127 47. “They Are Raising up the Totem Pole” by Henry (age 6) 129 48. “Apocalyptic Vision” by Stefan (age 12) 131 49. “Salish Woman Weaving” by Joe (age 9) 133 50. “A Mermaid Witch Is Making a Necklace from Seashells” by Jaclyn (age 5) 134 51. “Brother Jason’s Birthday Card” by Jaclyn (age 5) 136 52. “Mother Rabbit Explains That a Package Has Arrived” by Jaclyn (age 5) 137

Part Six: Comic Strips for Language Development 53. * “Mowing the Lawn” by Jon (age 11) 138 54. “The Whale Rescues Them in the Storm by Alexis (age 9) 141 55. Hockey and Football” by Chris (age 10) 142 56. “The Cay” by Wendy, Edward, Loan, Monica, Sherman, Vincent and Philip (grade six students) 143 57. “Taking Jack the Dinosaur for a Walk” by Neal (age 8) 145 58. Spiderman” by Jayme (intermediate age boy) 146

Part Seven: Drawing in Social Studies—The Mayan Project 59. to 68. - these nine Mayan drawings are all unattributed 147-155

Part Eight: Drawing in Science Education 69. * “Duck Pond” by Michelle (age 9) 70. “The Happy Gardener” by unknown intermediate child 159 71. “Corn Plant” by an unknown child of intermediate age 161 72. “Ant Drawing” by Peter (primary boy) 162 73. “Human Skeleton” by Jun (intermediate boy) 163 74. “The Great Blue Heron Book” by children in a Grade Two class 165 75. “A Frog in our Garden” by Cameron (age 12) 166 76. “A Dinosaur Drawing” by Sam (age 7) 167 77. “A Visit to a Spawning Stream” by Hania (age 10) 168 78. “Boats in a Tsunami” by Noah (age 7) 169 79. “A Page from a Science Scholar’s Notebook” by Brendan (age 7) 170

Glossary 80. * “Hen and Chicks” by Sammy Lau (age 13) 179

7

Preface A self-published first edition of this book appeared some years back. Now the message seems more urgent than ever. The motivation for re-introducing this book is to address the continued neglect of drawing in its role as a language me-dium, and to stress the need for adult involvement, not to teach but to nurture its natural development. I offer again the claims that have fired me for the past twenty years, which appear in this text in detail and have found resonance with many parents and teachers:

< In spontaneous drawing, children have an inborn language for express-ing the perceptions, thoughts and feelings that are needed for their long road to maturity. Drawing makes its appearance about the same time as words, but only if conditions are favorable.

< Drawing is an uncoded language. It emerges just when children are be-

ginning to struggle with oral expression and writing which are, indeed, severely coded. To supervise a daily drawing activity, no teaching is required, nor adult models. But without adult nurturing, this natural language withers on the vine and the particular values of language asso-ciated with drawing are never realized.

< Drawing is a language and brings language values to the growing child.

It facilitates the acquisition of literacy. < Spontaneous drawing as a language phenomenon is either unknown or

ignored by large numbers of parents, teachers and other educators. It is time to remedy this significant gap in the schooling of children.

8

< Literacy is a word that operates on more than one level: the traditional definition is the skills that make up the ‘literacy codes’ - speech and oral expression, cursive and printed letter forms, the rules of grammar and syntax, the conventions of written composition, the forms of creative writing, i.e. drama, short story, poetry etc. These are chal-lenging codes that must be taught and learned one way or another.

< The drawings in this book show that children not only draw spontane-ously but are able to articulate a richer content than would be possible with words. (The implications for mental development are obvious, nothing less than expanded language use!) Moreover, drawing turns out to have equivalents to nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and how these are organized in syntactical ways. Are there syntactical pathways in the brain shared by both language media, syntactical ways of think-ing and feeling? If literacy is commonly thought of as oral expression, written expression, and reading, we would add spontaneous drawing to the emergent language skills of early childhood.

< Drawing frequently functions as the pathfinder for verbal expression. Here’s how it works: drawing themes are motivated through discus-sion with a parent or teacher; a silent monologue accompanies the drawing performance; finished drawings stimulate conversations about a richer array of topics than would be usual. In addition to an enriched language, spontaneous drawing helps to bond children to their parents and teachers.

9

The Drawing Network In 1962, at my new job in the Faculty of Education, UBC, a question kept both-ering me: drawing is frequently referred to as a language medium, why, then, isn’t it treated with the seriousness given to literacy? In the late 1980’s, I founded The Drawing Network to explore this question with parents, teachers, academics and interested citizens. It became a vehicle for informal exchanges and a medium for spreading the word about spontaneous drawing as a language me-dium, literally, not metaphorically. We became convinced that drawing as children use it, is indeed a language in its own right and, at the same time, a significant aid to children achieving literacy. I can now say with confidence - and the drawings in this book back me up - that spontaneous drawing is the most important medium children have for articulating, express-ing, and communicating their subtlest and most complex perceptions, thoughts and feelings. By ignoring spontaneous drawing we deny children the full benefits of language - intellectual development, mental health, mental healing, increased interest in learning and, as we have stated, enhanced literacy. A steady flow of emails, pamphlets, newsletters and several books have been written and distributed across Canada, and in the United Kingdom, Australia, the USA, and China. Twenty-one years after its inception, the Drawing Network seems ready to contribute on a larger scale and this book is conceived as an im-portant tool in this revitalized effort. More information on the Drawing Network is available at http://drawnet.duetsoftware.net. Our email address is [email protected]. Correspondence is treated seriously.

10

About the Author

Bob Steele is a retired Associate Professor of Art Education in the Faculty of Edu-cation at the University of British Columbia. He began teaching in B.C. schools in 1950 and over the years has taught art to children, young people and adults. In 1962, he began teaching studio art and art education theory and practice to future teachers. In 1998, Draw Me A Story (now out of print) was published by Portage and Main Press. The Drawing Path for Children reformulates and expands the ideas put for-ward in that book.

Acknowledgments

I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness, first, to my many esteemed colleagues in art education, both the writers of books and articles and my colleagues in the Art Education Department, UBC. Thanks to my son-in-law, Doug Colpitts, who, with my daughter, Elizabeth, ed-ited and prepared my manuscript for publication.

The Drawing Path for Children began some years ago with reports from teachers and parents who use drawing as language in their daily encounters with children. Without their practical assistance and inspiration, this book would have been im-possible. I am particularly grateful to the children who made the drawings and to their par-ents who gave me permission to use their children’s art work.

11

Part One: Spontaneous Drawing in Early Childhood

We focus attention on two basic premises: a) Children use spontaneous drawing as an authentic language medium. b) Children use spontaneous drawing as a significant aid to literacy. If conditions are favourable, that is, if there is a daily opportunity for spontaneous drawing, it will begin with scribbling in the second year of life just as verbal ex-pression begins with babbling. Both languages evolve through predictable syntac-tical stages:

1. For early users, uncoded drawing greatly expands the use of language (Language is used here in the broadest sense to include any medium that allows the child to articulate experience.) Because there is no challenging code, drawing-as-language is able to include subtle and complex articula-tions, expressions and communications not yet possible with words.

2. By age six, children make pictorial art that communicates more complex

ideas and emotions than would be possible with words, encumbered as words are by codes - one for speech, another for writing and a third for reading. (Of course, words are supremely important for practical com-munication from the beginning and ultimately become our most impor-tant language, literacy.)

12 Part One: Spontaneous Drawing in Early Childhood

Holistic Language for Whole Children and a Healthy Society In today’s world, we are overwhelmed by problems that seem insurmountable. Too numerous and too familiar to list here, they are recorded daily in the media. (Start with war, poverty, crime, and racism, the all-too-familiar manifestations of a civilization in distress.) They affect us on two levels, the level of personal psy-chology, and the level of community. Before we despair, we should consider that in a democracy, it comes down to the mental health of a single child extrapolated to all children, and to one mature citizen extrapolated to the world community of citizens. An appreciation of the importance of spontaneous drawing in the lives of young children would offer a powerful tool in the healing of personal and social dis-ease. We hold that:

1. language is an indispensable tool for mental development 2. from the age of two, spontaneous drawing is the language children use

most effectively for all purposes except practical communication 3. drawing as a language medium is almost universally neglected.

The school curriculum is a product of culture: consider how relatively easy it would be to change how we conceptualize language and how we teach it to chil-dren. Adding drawing to the language part of it would be releasing a potential that is innate in every child the world over. It would require no teaching, but it would, of course, require nurturing. The happy by-product of this nurturing would be an improved relationship between parents and children which alone would improve the psychological/societal climate. And then - and this is no after-thought - there are the benefits of language which would greatly expand the child’s intellectual horizons, contribute to his or her mental health and healing (when healing is needed) considerably improve the learning environment and, as a bonus, facilitate the acquisition of literacy.

Part One: Spontaneous Drawing in Early Childhood 13

Drawing as a Language Medium in the Pre-School Years Most children begin using language seriously about the age of two, that is, roughly three years before they reach kindergarten. (Although, we are addressing these comments to the parents and caregivers of young children, the reform we have in mind extends throughout the school years and beyond.)

< Everything comes down to this: children need and have access to two lan-guages for making sense of their world: 1) literacy, i.e. words, spoken and written and 2) spontaneous drawing. We are accustomed to think of words as language, indeed, as the only language. We are less inclined to give drawing this status but the young child makes no such distinction. The first word is commonly thought of as the beginning of language and it is tacitly or explicitly recognized as having several codes. While challenging for many children, the codes of literacy are the mark of full maturity. As the carriers of literacy, they are a source of aesthetic energy. Literacy is an art form!

< On the other hand, drawing is not generally recognized as a language and, if you prefer, it can be thought of as a personally invented system of graphic symbols. It doesn’t really matter: the child, given the opportunity, uses draw-ing as a language medium. The important distinction here is that words are a cultural phenomenon and therefore coded, while drawing is a personal inven-tion and without code. And yet drawing has something closely parallel to a vocabulary and a syntax. Again, the difference is that literacy is a product of culture and, to be useful, must be coded, while drawing is a personal inven-tion of each individual child. If children produce similar graphic symbols and use them in similar ways, it is because they share the basic experiences of life

Withhold judgment. Let the argument unfold before challenging its logic. Above all, surrender to the charm, the content, the astonishing formal music of the drawings within.


across cultural boundaries. Thus, the first representation of a human being is universally the head/body circle with extended limbs and happy-face smile.

< It seems evident that the daily use of drawing as a spontaneous language is hugely important to the child’s mental development and mental health. The problem with literacy - ultimately the most important language - is that in the early years its codes prevent spontaneous use, and it takes years of careful teaching before there is a possibility of spontaneity. Of course, the spoken word is spontaneous - at home, on the playground, and at school - but it is mainly limited to practical communication. It is illuminating to compare the content of the drawings reproduced here with the content of the oral and written products by children the same age.

< Drawing, unlike literacy, is ingrained in every child’s psyche from birth and because there is no code, spontaneity is an inherent characteristic. When con-ditions are right, the two languages emerge more or less at the same time. Given a supportive environment at home and school, they develop in mutual support, the one coded, the other not. The result is the possibility of a third language, words and drawings working in tandem together. This happens naturally when preschoolers print on the same sheet to add meaning to a drawing, a significant example of drawing promoting literacy.

< We can observe a parallel development in the two languages: children babble

before they use words, master a simple vocabulary before they form sen-tences, develop an intuitive syntax while expressing thoughts and feelings, practice oral expression before they can write, and write poems and stories when a level of skill has been reached. At roughly the same age, they scribble before they make their first primitive schema (schemata are the pictorial units children invent for relatively consistent use), create a graphic vocabulary be-fore they draw elaborate story-telling pictures.


< The relationship between words and drawings is highly symbiotic and should be nurtured throughout the school years as whole language. A daily practice of drawing aids literacy because it stimulates conversations with adult caregivers on serious themes. This relationship, with its rich possibilities, is not possible when one or the other is neglected as drawing is neglected in the home prac-tice and school curriculum.

< We must not forget other language media which play important roles, such as music, drama, dance, and, of course, language arts, but drawing is the most immediately effective for dealing with the life experiences of growing up, whether these are tragic, fearful, observational, loving, awe-inspiring or cele-bratory. For the child, oral expression is the obvious language for practical communication; drawing is the obvious language for the subtle and complex articulation, expression, and communication of perceptions, thoughts and feelings.

< I make these claims confidently after studying hundreds of drawings by chil-dren and analyzing them for a) content b) form and c) how children integrate the two through the empathy they feel for subject matter and for the drawing performance. Empathy is intense identification with subject matter and proc-ess. Children lose themselves in the drawing.

< Some educational theorists claim that drawing is affective and does not belong

to the cognitive domain, in other words, is not an intellectual activity. Those who say so do not understand the creative process. If we accept that intuition is intellectual - and where else would it fit in the scheme of things - then drawing passes this test. Indeed, every mark a child makes while drawing is cognitive. Every relationship that one can point to in a picture is the result of a preconscious (intellectual) decision. Making art is comprised of episodes of rational decisions (for example, choosing a theme, and post-drawing analysis) and preconscious or intuitive mark-making.


< Those who place the arts in the affective domain are not entirely wrong, but, whether you are a child or an artist, the performance of any art form brings about a fusion, an integration of perceptions, thoughts and feelings. This is the special gift of the arts and the special gift of drawing. The arts are both cogni-tive/intellectual and affective, and from this point of view, they are vitally important to mental health. Drawing just happens to be the medium most directly accessible to children for making sense of their world at a critical time in their development.

< Children appreciate the power of symbol and fail to make more than a rudimen-tary connection to what we might call photographic naturalism. This should not surprise us. The word for mother is abstract and bears no resemblance to the real thing. The schema for mother is typically a head/body circle with attached lines for limbs and a ‘happy face’ with a broad smile. This too is an abstract symbol only distantly related to the child’s sensory knowledge. The drawer is not confused: without knowing it, he or she has ‘invented’ a personal symbol for ‘mother’. If asked, the young artist would know that this is not how mother looks any more than she looks like the noun that is her verbal symbol. The drawing is a symbol, not a likeness, and it seems right to the child be-cause empathy was felt during its making.

< To sum up: A holistic language program, that is, words and drawings to-gether, benefits intellectual growth, mental development, mental health and effective learning. With such a program firmly established from the early years and widely accepted as normal practice, we could expect fully self-actualized individuals, a more compassionate and empathic adult population, and, eventually, a more civil society. It is worth striving for.


The Beginning of Language: Making Marks on Paper As soon as children are able to clutch a drawing tool, they will use it to make marks on paper. An open-ended exploration follows with no predictable se-quence, but along with dots and dashes, skeins of overlapping loop-the-loops, bundles of loosely parallel strokes, the most typical form to emerge is likely to be the scribble. Scribbling is the natural outcome of how the human body works: the arm holds the drawing tool which swings loosely from the shoulder, the ac-tion is modified and controlled by the elbow, wrist and fingers. Overlapping cir-cles are a natural outcome. Children experience two kinds of pleasure in scribbling. The first is kinesthetic, the pleasure of moving the body - it simply feels good physically to move a draw-ing tool purposefully and rhythmically. The second is aesthetic, the sense of awe and beauty one feels when certain body movements create interesting marks on a clean sheet of paper. Mature artists experience these pleasures but it is all new and exciting to the child. Indeed, it is likely to be the first opportunity for a 'creative' performance. This is a good time for parents to begin a ‘hands-off’ pol-icy. Scribbling is the beginning of a graphic language just as burbling is the begin-ning of literacy. It is the first indication of an uncoded language waiting to unfold naturally through daily use. It should be encouraged to unfold naturally. Random scribbles become abstract shapes and shapes evolve into symbolic repre-sentations, as we see in Drawing No.1 (page 20). The emergence of the head-body configuration may seem grotesque to the literal minded parent but look at it this way. It is either the first or near-first attempt at representation and, more-over, by crossing cultural boundaries, this head/body combo is as close as one can get to a universal schema for the human form. Naturally, it is someone im-portant and, more often than not, the drawer's mother. It is an image of love: we know this from the crude facial expression. But not only is there feeling as emo-tion, but feeling as touching. This is the combination that spells empathy. The


drawing of mother may be crude but it was made with empathy! A circle which combines head and body seems appropriate, especially as experience tells us that children create holistic imagery in their drawings throughout their early years. This may be the first manifestation of it. But don't worry, the head/body combo soon becomes head and body as perception and a growing rationality begin to make their influence felt! The material conditions are simple enough: a drawing tool, free access to inex-pensive paper, regular opportunities, a table, (but the kitchen floor is okay), and a parent or mature adult who may give a brief demonstration if it proves neces-sary as a starter.

Mark-making is an affirmation of selfhood, a feeling more than an articulation: “I make marks, therefore I am!” It is a first experience of performing and seeing the product of performance. “This is something I have made.” There are scribbles on Paleolithic caves that look like childish mark-making but were probably made by adults. An archeologist with a flare for poetry named them “serpentine meanders”. Scholars have difficulty saying what these meanders mean, but their resemblance to the scribbles made by children suggests a deeply ingrained human propensity for this kind of free-swinging mark-making. Further evidence is found in the art of Jackson Pollack and many other modernists whose paintings once elicited remarks like, “My kid could that!”, but are now justly rec-ognized as masterworks of contemporary art. Should parents and teachers artificially prolong scribbling because it may be viewed as more abstract and therefore more aesthetic than early representational drawings? This, of course, would be folly. Each stage must be allowed to have its turn and when the time is right the child will know when to move on. Moreover, when children move from abstract scribble to abstract representation, there is a stronger charge of aesthetic energy. Scribbles are powerful in form but weak in con-


tent. When subject matter enters the drawing performance, form and content reach a balance and the work of art is more productive in the values of language we have cited. However, the scribble is still useful because it occasionally be-comes a way of applying tone and texture. At just the right moment, the scribbling child will come face-to-face with a rec-ognizable configuration and, gradually, representational art will take over. In my experience as an art teacher, this moment was most vividly illustrated when my niece, Mary, was taken in her grandfather’s arms and carried to his garden. The purpose was to show off his newly planted peach tree with its single fruit pendu-lously hanging ripe for the picking. The moment was memorable for Mary. No doubt, she was encouraged to enjoy the color, form, and texture of the beautiful object. She was probably urged to touch the newly-ripened peach and feel its furry hide. Back home the next day with art supplies spread out on the kitchen floor, Mary was happily scribbling when she spotted a shape that reminded her of something. She called to her mother and, quite delighted with her discovery, said, “Grandpa’s peach!”

Second excerpt: pages 38 - 47 from

Part Two: Motivating Themes for Authentic Drawing

38 Part Two: Motivating Themes for Authentic Drawing

Motivating Themes for Authentic Drawing It is central to this book that any concerned adult can establish a daily draw for children. It is not necessary to have drawing skills or to be an art teacher or an artist. Indeed, any attempt to teach a method, a technical approach, or a cartoon-style shortcut is entirely counter-productive. It can’t be said often enough: chil-dren have a language of their own, an inborn, un-coded language waiting to be used and nurtured through daily practice. The role of the adult is to schedule drawing opportunities, encourage participation and motivate themes. Thematic motivation isn’t necessary for every drawing session but frequently and especially when the creative impulse needs stimulation or appears to be drying up. Here we examine twelve motivational strategies that will help parents or teachers provide a varied program. 1. Visualization and Guided Imagery Visualization is a technique that can be practiced with eyes shut or eyes open. Children learn quickly but need to be helped to understand how it relates to drawing. Here is an example of how it might be presented: “To become a good drawer, you need to learn to ‘see’ on the ‘inner screen of your imagination’. Let’s see how it works: look at your neighbor for a few moments and then shut your eyes. You can still see him, can’t you, you can bring him up on the ‘screen of your imagination’ if you wish .This ability to see in your imagination is visualization. Visualization, although it certainly helps, isn’t an absolute necessity. A story read or a story told is in some mysterious way a story ‘visualized’ even without the drawer realizing it. Pertinent information is stored in the mind/brain to be used later during the drawing performance. The analogy is obvious: whether conscious or unconscious, visualization is loading the child’s personal computer but all you really need to do is concentrate on telling a vivid story or a vivid description or a vivid evocation!

Part Two: Motivating Themes for Authentic Drawing 39

Guided imagery is a useful strategy in the initial planning stage of a drawing and it is particularly useful for second attempts. (See strategy 13.) With guided imagery, children are asked to follow your instructions as you describe a changing scenario. The purpose is to explore possibilities so that the drawer can choose the most appealing. It is a technique for opening up creative possibilities. Here is an exam-ple: suppose playground bullying is the theme and the first drawing shows mostly empty space and not enough action to be effective. Suggest a second try: “Boys and girls, guided imagery may be useful to solve this problem. Here’s how it works: shut your eyes and imagine that you are very close to the bullying incident. Bring the protagonists closer to you the viewer. Do you see how you can change the picture just by thinking of a different point of view? Try this: Pretend that you are watching from the branch of a large tree, which means that you are looking down on the action. Get a clear visualization of this. Now imagine that you are observing the incident from a lower position. You get a quite different picture, don’t you. When you draw on your own you can use this technique to plan where the main elements will go. Don’t overdo it: just think of the important ele-ments and let the details appear spontaneously as you draw. Note: Don’t expect the drawing to be a facsimile of the visualization or the final scenario. Guided imagery shows its beneficial influence in unexpected ways. It should be explained to disappointed drawers that the techniques of visualization and guided imagery are used to explore possibilities, not to create images that will appear automatically on the paper. Encourage the children to think of these sessions as part of a creative process in which other factors influence the out-come. 2. Motivating Themes with the Model Present Drawing No. 6 - “Fading Sunflower” by an unknown child (age 10): When school commenced in the fall there was a fine collection of sunflowers going to seed in the school garden. They provided excellent subjects for ‘drawing with the model present’.


When I first learned about child art as an undergraduate, it was thought to be a near-heresy to provide a visible model for children to draw. The modern ap-proach was based on the newly-discovered knowledge that children have a lan-guage of their own, that is, spontaneous drawing, and this discovery would require a new approach to teaching. Art educators were motivated to do their best to eradicate formula art (the entrenched method of the time) from schooling, and the authentic drawing of childhood was viewed as an imperative by these same art educators. Now we know that even younger children respond to drawing some-thing they can see, but, for an authentic outcome, they must be encouraged to use the spontaneous language they were born with and not a series of adult for-mulas. Preschoolers respond best to stories and draw mostly from memory and imagina-tion but we know now that they are also inspired to draw something they can refer to such as a vase of flowers, a posed human subject or a favorite animal. They approach the problem differently, however: rather than striving for an accu-rate reproduction, as older children do, they use the model as a source of infor-mation which they happily translate into abstract symbols or schemata. Younger children use drawing as a symbolic language not unlike the symbolic language of words. Post-naives (children after the arrival of self-consciousness) shift to a more illustrative approach where likeness is important. I once visited Professor Michael Foster’s model art class for children and youths at the Child Art Centre (UBC). The subject was a South Asian mother in ethnic costume. The older children had been taught to render the model in classical con-tour line, that is, to follow the edges of forms with their drawing tools. Lines on paper were coordinated with edges on models. The younger children, on the other hand, studied the model and un-self-consciously made mental notes. Then, with scarcely another glance, they produced their abstracted versions from memory. The model was there if they needed to check for information but they were es-sentially drawing from memory. For the younger children it was not a matter of achiev-ing ‘correctness’ but a way of recording information in a kind of shorthand.

Drawing No. 6: “Fading Sunflower” by an unknown child (age 10)


Years later I formulated a rationale: Drawing with the subject present and visible has the happy result of increasing empathy for the objective world whether human or non-human. Drawing from observation (or ‘with the model present’ as may be a more appro-priate way of describing it to younger children) is important for another group of students, that is, children who have reached the age of self-consciousness and are utterly convinced they cannot draw. Drawing contours of models they can see is a legitimate drawing technique and having the model present is reassuring. This is not to be confused with ‘copying’ which is not legitimate, indeed, is counter-productive. Asking some older children to create drawings from their imagina-tion or memory may send them into panic mode whereas drawing a visible object may inspire confidence - may even produce some surprisingly good drawings from a reluctant convert. The challenge then is to help these children to under-stand that their inaccurate rendering is just a step along the way towards empathic realism. It will help if values other than “getting it to look like it really is” are stressed, values such as the expression of feelings, the decorative quality of em-pathic forms and the sheer joy of wielding a pencil and giving it your best try! I urge you to study the drawings in this book all of which are examples of em-pathic realism whether the mode was observation, memory, or imagination. All were the product of deep empathic involvement; none was the product of the unfortunate urge to “get it right”. In authentic art there is no “getting it right”, only the need to “get it deep” and “get it personal”! Drawing No. 7 - “A Visit to a Spawning Stream” by Hania (age 10): Hania drew this exquisite sheet of graphic images either on a field trip or back in the classroom from notes. It is filled with accurate renderings of natural forms and contains a summary of everything she learned on a school outing. It is great draw-ing and good science!

Children in an elementary school were taken to a nearby salmon spawning stream to draw under the guidance of a fish scientist from the local university as well as their classroom teacher. They were motivated by a presentation that combined interesting facts about salmon with a strong sense of nature poetry. “What do you see? Can you put a line around it? And don’t forget to label parts and incorporate state-ments of fact. Facts can be poetry too. Nature biologists have always used drawing as a tool

Drawing No. 7: “A Visit to a Spawning Stream” by Hania (age 10)


for recording observations. We can do the same. Do you think this will make a difference to saving the environment, to rescuing endangered species?: Drawing, with its strong ele-ment of empathy, can be a tool for environmental health. 3. Motivating Themes from Memory - Past Events Drawing No. 8 - “Dragon Parade” by Hogan (age 7): A vivid experience filled with observed and remembered details became the subject of a drawing the following day. There are two approaches to drawing from memory. One is to ask children to draw events that have already happened and are lodged in memory. For example, “Remember a wonderful party you attended and draw it in as much detail as possible” The second is to involve children in a situation where they will study a location or occasion knowing they will be asked to draw it later. It is difficult to imagine a seven-year-old actually planning such a complex com-position. It seems more likely that he simply started drawing and stopped when the page was full. If so, how do we account for the incredible network of rela-tionships we find on close examination? Look with special care to the lower right quadrant for a remarkable structure of related forms (the dragon’s head). As is true of the entire drawing, there is no sign of hesitation or a need for correction, no jiggling back and forth trying to get it right. Every line and every shape and the way shapes relate to each other, all are perfect. This sense of total confidence in where the lines should fall and where the shapes should be located is typical of empathic drawing. Hogan’s “Dragon Parade” is a perfect example of empathy for remembered subject matter. In my judgment, it is a work of art (which you will have noticed on the cover). Note: In a study of hundreds of children’s drawings, the largest number one could judge to be integrated in form, content and technique occur in the age-group

Drawing No. 8: “Dragon Parade” by Hogan, (age 7)

of four, five, six and seven-year-olds. It is in these years that children 1) have gained confidence in their drawing skills 2) are still largely un-self-conscious or ‘naive’ 3) are still relatively free of cultural stereotypes. Younger children and older children seem unable to produce works of such high aesthetic energy. Hogan’s is a drawing of detail and you might ask is detail important? When we remember that each detail represents cognitive activity, then, of course, it must


be considered important. When a multiplicity of details are so precisely integrated as in “Dragon Parade”, the achievement is indeed impressive. But the process of abstracting, refining, and simplifying is also important a we find in other draw-ings. The drawing can go either way, thick with details or stark with bare-bones simplicity. In both, ‘the little gray cells’ are working overtime to realize the best possible solution. 4. Motivating Themes from Memory - Programmed Subjects Drawing No. 9 - “My Bedroom” by Zoe (age 6): The children were asked to study their room very carefully prior to making a detailed drawing the next day. A teacher told her class to look closely at their bedrooms before coming to school and to memorize every detail because the subject of a drawing would be “My Room and Everything In It.” (The time lag between close study and drawing was a full day but it could be shortened.) When I was a Boy Scout, “Kim’s Game” was frequent activity. (In the novel “Kim” by Rudyard Kipling, the main character plays a memory game as part of his training as a spy). This memory-enhancing technique can be adapted to drawing. The teacher sets up a still-life and covers it. The subject is revealed and studied; the sheet is replaced and drawings are made from memory. A variation: the teacher can arrange to have a visitor come from another classroom to visit for five minutes of intense study. The subject leaves and the pose is drawn from memory. Another variation: as part of the class celebration of Hallowe’en, costumed fig-ures are recruited to act out a “Trick or Treat” event. The drawers are prepared to draw, the tricksters knock and enter the room. The pose is held for a brief viewing while the drawers study the pose. The costumed children leave and the drawers draw. Incidentally, costumed and masked figures are reassuring for be-ginning drawers who find the human form a special challenge.

Drawing No. 9: “My Bedroom” by Zoe (age 6)

The Drawing Path for Children - Duet Software · 3. “Shells” by Megan (age 3) 30 4. “Portrait...

Documents

Transcript of The Drawing Path for Children - Duet Software · 3. “Shells” by Megan (age 3) 30 4. “Portrait...