at what age was your child drawing recognizable pictures?

[Llyra]

DD2 will be four in a few weeks, and she draws those little faces, with recognizable features, and hair, and with the arms and legs coming right out of the head. That's what DD1 did, too, at that age. But DS, who will also be four in a few weeks, still just scribbles. I've never worried much about it, but his Sunday School teacher has been emailing me that she's concerned about it. And I'm wondering at what age is this kind of thing usual?

When he draws, he will tell me what it is that he made-- this is my cat, mama, or this is a motorcycle. But it all just looks like scribbles.

It's not in my parenting nature to get hung up on "milestones." But DS has always lagged behind his twin, developmentally, and people notice, and comment, and I guess sometimes I start to doubt.

[HappyMommy2]

My 5yo DS is very smart and very verbal, but did not draw recognizable pictures until just after turning 5.  Then it was an explosion within a couple months, drawing cars, flowers, shapes, spongebob, and even writing his name.

My 3 yo DD can already draw circles piled up as a snowman including eyes/mouth/arms. 

I'm not sure what the reason is, but I didn't worry about it.  DS was/is clearly ahead in other things, like building/paintel model cars and various building toys, so it did not concern me.  Looking back, good thing I didn't sweat it!!

[laohaire]

I'm afraid I can't remember the exact age that DD started drawing recognizable pictures, but I can say that it was just scribbles for quite a while (and yes, I'm pretty sure until 4), and then over a period of maybe 6 months she really took a leap with this skill. Now they are recognizable to the point where it's not even just "oh, that's a person" "that's a cat" but I know WHO they are - "that's you and nana" and "that's our male cat."

It varies, though. Sometimes she'll be in a mood where her drawings are pretty scribbly and unoriginal, and sometimes she's in a mood where she presents me with work that honestly surprises me (like unusual perspectives or really special detail). But anyway, I think we had a late bloomer here in terms of drawing, but she bloomed!

[sunnygir1]

Does he draw a line or something like a circle at all?  I can't remember what age they are supposed to be able to do that, but I know they look for it.

Dd will be 4 in February.  She has been drawing things that approximate circles (more like amoeba shapes with some sharp corners) for a few months at least.  She will draw a series of a shape that looks like a backwards lowercase "e" over and over again in a line, like writing.  She occasionally has drawn a sort of circular shape with a line below it, like a really funky balloon on a string.  That's as recognizable as it's gotten at this point.  I wouldn't exactly call it all scribbles, though -- she is experimenting and trying to make different shapes.

All that to explain where my dd is and tell you that I think it is completely normal.  I have absolutely no concerns about her development.

[ecoteat]

DD drew a circle with two dots for eyes and a line for a mouth right after she turned 3. And that was it for over a year. I was staring to wonder if that was normal to completely stall on a skill for so long. But in the last couple months, she's started writing her name and attempting more detail in pictures. She's paying attention to color and trying to draw what's in her mind or what she sees, but she just doesn't have the dexterity yet. But I do feel like she just recently had a big developmental leap in that area, so that's a relief! I don't know at what point parents should look into help if there is some sort of delay, but I do know that's one of the many skills that kids develop when they are good and ready, not neccessarily when we think they will.

[mkmama]

I could have posted this mama, and I feel for your uncertainy. It feels good that i am not alone, which this forum usually provides!

Anyways, DS turns 5 in April so he is over 41/2 and he still scribbles. I have seen him try and draw shapes or a house/person if i make him...but he is NOT interested in coloring or drawing, and never has been.

I am just hoping eventually he will want to and will just do it, and i don't push it. perhaps i don't push it enough, not giving him opportunity to try.

I bet by 5 1/2 our boys will be drawing us more pix than we know what to do with!

[HappyMommy2]

Originally Posted by sunnygir1 

Does he draw a line or something like a circle at all?  I can't remember what age they are supposed to be able to do that, but I know they look for it.

This is a great point.  My son went to preschool placement day, and they wanted him to draw a circle and a cross as some sort of test.  We aren't religious, and I don't think he had ever even heard the term "cross".  So the teacher drew it, and then he had no problem doing it too.  Anyways, I will make sure mine can draw a circle and an X in the future!  :-)  Oh - and the circles didn't look like perfectly round circles or anything, they just wanted the general idea.

[AllisonR]

Could be your DS is just concentrating on other things. Neither of my kids followed the typical pattern. DS RARELY drew, and if he did, it was a quick scribble, until he was a little over 4. Then suddenly he drew a perfect circle, symbolic eyes and mouth. Within a month or two he started drawing a ton, and you could tell exactly what he was drawing. He never went through the typical drawing stages - messy circle with sqiggles in it, circle with arms and legs coming directly out of the head... He just went from scribbles to full people. He is 6 now and still draws a lot and loves it. He makes very complex scenes, treasure maps, video games (eh).... But he does not write a lot. For example he will rarely sign his names to his drawings, unless he is asked.  

DD on the other hand went through all the typical drawing stages. Crude, messy circle, messy circle with squiggles and lines coming out of it as arms or legs... Over time she got better, but you could really see the very typical progression. I guess she could draw what you would recognise as a person early, before age 3. OTOH, even though she can draw, she likes to write just as much. So she will more often make a scribble or messy primitive drawing but then quite legibly write her name, my name.... She has even written several "books" So she likes writing more than drawing and so she prefers to concentrate on that. 

[Llyra]

If I make up-and-down lines, or sideways lines, or circles, he'll copy what I make. If he feels like it. Sometimes he just tells me, "leaf me aLONE mama I's drawing THIS" but he has done it often enough so I know he can. And he's otherwise pretty normal in his development-- it's just that his sister is always, always, always ahead of him. I think being the boy half of a twin pair is maybe just not fair. I'm starting to suspect that boys just lag a bit-- I've heard that from a lot of people. The only thing he ever did before her was climb. And boy, oh boy, did he climb.

Thanks, mamas. It's good to know there's variation on this.

[major_mama11]

DD didn't really draw her first recognizable picture until 3.5. Then she drew 2 pictures of animals on the same day (I was so excited)... and then no more recognizable pictures until about 4.5! I was a little worried about it at the time, as a former art major, but I tried not to stress about it. One day she was scribbling on her magna doodle, and started drawing faces and people and trees, and hasn't really stopped since. She has gone from not drawing at all to being completely obsessed with it, and she basically just exploded with it when she finally did get around to doing it. It's been fun to watch.

Yeah on the boy/girl thing... DD has hit most milestones before DS, except for gross motor skills!

[DasMaedchen]

My little girl turned 3 in August,  and she recently (within the past month) started drawing people recognized as such...round body, stick arms and legs, some hair, eyes and usually a mouth or nose.  

[cappuccinosmom]

My middle son scribbled until about 5 yo, and even now he prefers not to draw though he will draw moderately recognizeable things if I press him to.  He is "behind" with the small motor skills, and finds the fiddly process of adding details to pictures tedious and annoying.  He has more interesting things to do with his time, apparently.

[What Next?]

This made me smile - I remember dd's 1st "recognizeable person" drawing.  She was 3 years 2 months, and drew it after preschool on her 1st day!  It was like the experience had already made lasting changes in her neural pathways. 

Or maybe she was about to start doing that anyway, and she just happened to start school that day.  Who knows! 

She then proceeded to wallpaper our house in similar drawings for the next 2 1/2 years.  Seriously. In mid-kdg last year, her drawings were still quite similar to her 3yo draings.  And then suddenly, over the last 3-4 months (all around 6th birthday), I've seen a HUGE difference in the detail and planning of her drawings.

My nephew turned 4 in September.  He can draw and paint fabulous trucks - they're really expressive and very recognizable.  But he has no interest in drawing faces and his attempts at people or animals are nothing but scribbles and blotches.

My own observations (volunteering in preschool 3yr, preschool 4yr, all-day kdg) are that girls seem more interested in drawing people than things, girls seem to have better fine-motor control at a younger age, and ALL kids go thru these crazy spurts.  And all kids have different interests! 

Recently I saw a great visual representation of the phases of artistic ability, but of course I can't find it now!  Here's the blurb for 4yo art on PBS Development Tracker:

Art

• Begins to create art that is more realistic and includes some details of objects, animals or people. Such details are typically remembered features that have made an impression, but do not include all that is seen or known (e.g., draws a picture of a car with four wheels but no windows).

• Uses art to reflect thoughts and feelings (e.g., transforms a list of favorite foods that his teacher had recorded on paper into a mobile from which illustrations of these foods are hung).

• Builds on knowledge of basic art techniques to do activities like printing, etching, puppetry and weaving (e.g., joins in a preschool class project to weave ribbons into a back fence).

•  Can describe what is is pleasing about others' artwork and how the art makes him or her feel (e.g., finds pleasure in the bright colors and bold lines of Andy Warhol's artwork viewed on a trip to a museum).

Remember that this info should hold true until the age of 5, so if your ds is barely doing these things, that's still developmentally appropriate.

[GardenStream]

By 2 both of my boys could draw shapes (basic triangles, circles and squares).  My oldest is 4 1/2 and doesn't draw anything other than shapes, letters and numbers which are recognizable.  He tends to draw things in shapes so after he tells me it's a tree, then I can see the line trunk and the big circle on top.  I wouldn't guess it was a tree before he tells me.

[Daffodil]

Both my kids could draw some things that weren't scribbles by the time they were 3, but they didn't do a lot of drawing as 4 year olds, and neither drew people at that age.  DS is in preschool this year, in a class of  kids who were all 4 at the start of the year - now some of them are 5.  You can see from the artwork they put up in the classroom that several (at least) of the kids in his class still just scribble.  I assume that's normal.

[revolting]

My nearly four year old daughter only started drawing recognizable pictures in the last few months.

[cschick]

My four year old was a big scribbler, and then one day in December he came home from preschool with a neatly drawn Christmas tree surrounded by presents. I asked him which friend of his had drawn it (his friends like drawing him pictures) and he said that he had drawn it, and then sat down to show me. Now he's been obsessed with drawing flowers for the past couple of weeks. As far as I can tell, it was an overnight change from scribbling to drawing.

He also became much neater with writing his letters and numbers that same week.

[JudiAU]

My DS just recently started drawing humanoid monster things. He'll draw people too but he is going through a big monster phase so they'll often have an extra eye or something. About 3y 4m. He has been able to draw all of the alphabet letters for 8-10 months and can write his name. He signs into preschool with a new name every day now. Monster today, flower yesterday, he needs the spelling...

[KCMichigan]

I teach 3 yr old preschool. The below is almost exactly what we look for by the end of the year. So my kids (3 yr old, some turn 4 before school year is out) should be able to draw a person looking thing with 3/ parts, circle, vertical/horizontal lines, and handle scissors in a basic way. Usually the 'people' look like circles with lines out of them and maybe some eyes or 'hair'.

Usually it is related to fine motor control. Boys tend to develop it later than girls, but not always. Good fine motor activities to build fine motor control is:: stringing beads, picking up small objects, pinching clothes pins open/shut, sorting small objects, opening latches/levers/doorknobs, playdough play, and coloring.

This is from the Pediatric Healthcare Commission:

• At about age 3:
  • The ability to draw a circle upon request
  • Drawing a person with three parts
  • Beginning to use children's blunt-nose scissors
  • Self-dressing (with supervision)
• At about age 4:
  • The ability to draw a square
  • The use of scissors, and eventually cutting a straight line
  • The ability to put clothes on properly
  • Managing a spoon and fork neatly while eating
• At about age 5:
  • Spreading with a knife
  • The ability to draw a triangle

[mrskingred]

DS wasn't particularly interested in drawing, only scribbling. He was much more interested in cutting. Shortly after his 4th birthday he started drawing people and colouring within the lines. He prefers to draw rockets rather than people.