How does your DC draw?

1399 Views 21 Replies 18 Participants Last post by 2bluefish, Apr 17, 2009

AllisonR

Discussion Starter · Apr 12, 2009

I posted something similar in Childhood years, but only got two replies. I am really curious. Seems children normally scribble, then do circle drawings, then crude head with 2 eyes and mouth and arms sticking out of the head... then more representational and details....

My son is not interested in this sort of progression. Not that I am trying to make him. I find it interesting though. Rarely does he draw a person. But he makes very balanced patterns. For example, 4 street crossing signs in the corners of the paper, or a train track with all the rows of vertical lines and then a circle on the left and same sized circle on the right.

If he makes things out of legos, they are always even; for example the same amount and color bricks on the left and right sides, and then the same amount and color on the top and bottom. He can make complex robots, planes... but they are all symetrical. And he is usually unhappy unless DH is helping him make something really complex. He's not overly neat and tidy person, not super rigid about rules (at least not by a 4.5 yo standard, iykwim). His motor skills are fine. He can draw all his letters and numbers for example, and he can draw people, he just doesn't feel like it I guess, and I am not going to encourage it because I think he ought to go in whatever direction he feels. There is enough people in the world trying to squish all the creativity out of our kids, I don't need to do it too. I am an artist, but do not have any of my earliest artwork, so maybe I progressed in the same form? Anyone else out there with a DC with a similar artistic style?

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AAK

· #2 · Apr 12, 2009

I was going to post a question/comment about drawings today too. Currently, my youngest has started to draw people (us). She just turned three. What is unusual, IMO is that she draws a small circle and colors it in, below that she draws a large circle with a small circle inside it. I asked her to tell me about her picture--the top circle was my nose, the large circle my body, and the little one inside that was my belly button.

My oldest, also drew differently. At 3 or 4 she would draw mostly whole person, (head, middle, legs, & arms). She also drew a circle inside the midsection, but down low. She said that was their "body"--her own word for genitalia. Also, ever since she was very little, the alphabet blocks had to stack letter to letter. You couldn't turn them, or she would redo it.

Interesting quirks I guess.

Amy

glorified_rice

· #3 · Apr 12, 2009

My son is 4 and has very little interest in drawing representations of things. He has only drawn a person (himself) once and more often than not his paintings and drawings are very very colorful and abstract. Sometimes just by chance they will come out looking like something and he'll say "hey, that looks like a bird," but it is never really intentional

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eepster

· #4 · Apr 12, 2009

DS was interested in representational drawing breifly when he was 2 yo. He did a rather disjointed face, a bunch of "snowman head"s and a fish, he also wrote a few letters. Then by 2 1/2 he lost interest. I think he just was frustrated that his finemotor skills aren't up to what he pictures in his mind. Now he mostly does non representational things that look like he planned a fine motor excersice for himself (like he recently filled an entire sheet of paper with paralel lines.)

P-chan

· #5 · Apr 12, 2009

I have had drawing on the brain too, and almost posted last week! My almost-six-year-old son has had very little interest in representation drawing and is more into patterns. He entered kindergarten last fall reading at about a 2nd-grade level, but was not interested in writing at all. (At this point in the year his writing is at the same level as the other kids in his class.)

It caught my eye when he brought something home last week that had "tadpole people"---heads with eyes and smiles, and legs coming straight down. Nothing else. Developmental charts often mention, for each age, drawing human figures with a particular number of body parts, and I knew that this was way off for his age.

That afternoon we did some drawing together and I encouraged him to make as detailed a person as possible. He ended up with (what I considered) an age-appropriate person.

I think he really just doesn't care if he produces a detailed human figure. Now that he knows about stick people, he prefers drawing them because they're fast and easy.

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teachma

· #6 · Apr 12, 2009

My son, now 8 years old, did not begin to draw representationally until he started kindergarten shortly after turning 5. Until then, he was ALL about patterns and linear, symmetrical drawings. During the preschool years, we attended a number of birthday parties at art studio type places, and his masterpieces always received many interested comments...As it turns out, I believe that like a previous poster suggested, he was staying away from representational drawings because he couldn't produce ones that looked "real" enough to him. He is a perfectionist, and this trait usually keeps him from trying things that he knows will not immediately yield success or accuracy. Interestingly, he is now quite a fine and prolific artist who experiments often with his style and LOVES art class at school more than any other subject.

Freeman

· #7 · Apr 12, 2009

I've noticed ds taking more of an interest in drawing lately. This week, he drew a tree and placed his family members in/around the tree but depicted us as various amimals. I was a lady bug, DH was a bear standing underneath the tree, and his brother was a bird on a limb.

Sometimes he draws arms/legs coming from one circle and sometimes he draws arms/legs coming from a body drawn beneath a head, if that makes sense. He drew a dog the other day that surprised me -- it had a horizontal body with 4 legs. I thought it was interesting that he knew how to do this, since we've never really "worked on" any type of drawing instruction. Who knew?

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Daffodil

· #8 · Apr 12, 2009

Neither of my kids has ever drawn symmetrical patterns. DD first tried representational drawing somewhere between 2 1/2 and 3. For a long time, all she drew was volcanoes (a sort of humping curve with lines of lava coming out the top.) Somewhere around 3 1/2, she started drawing "moops" - blobs with a variable number of lines for legs, and a couple of dots for eyes, sometimes a mouth (which might include a tongue, and occasionally even taste buds.) I think she liked drawing something that was supposed to look like a blob with stick legs, rather than attempting people and having them come out looking like blobs with stick legs. For quite a while longer she mostly only drew volcanoes or moops. Then when she was almost 5, she saw a friend's drawing of a person and started drawing people herself. From there, she soon branched out into other things like dinosaurs, and now at 6 she draws all kinds of things (with average skill for her age) - unicorns, dragons, Harry Potter with his wand.

3 year old DS has only occasionally drawn a specific thing - most commonly, balloons, which are sufficiently easy since you just need to be able to draw a circle and a line. Lately he likes to make random winding lines all over and call them roads or paths or a maze.

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Aufilia

· #9 · Apr 14, 2009

What an interesting post! DD's artwork perplexes me, as well. She doesn't really draw anything recognizable. For example, yesterday she took an orange marker and drew swirling whirls in a blob in the center of a white piece of paper, then took a blue marker and put dots all over the orange blob. Then toward the right she drew 4 vertical blue lines and one little blue blob at the bottom of each line. She told me it was a leopard, and the lines with blobs are its legs and feet. So I wrote "Leopard" on the top for her and she gave it to Grandma. She has not claimed to draw any people recently.

quaz

· #10 · Apr 14, 2009

I posted something similar in Childhood years, but only got two replies. I am really curious. Seems children normally scribble, then do circle drawings, then crude head with 2 eyes and mouth and arms sticking out of the head... then more representational and details....

Yes, this is a very standard way most kids begin drawing.

This isn't always the case, though. My oldest was/is perfectionistic, and refused to draw until she was 3 1/2. I believe her very first person she drew had clothes on. She drew people and people and more people for 1/2 a year. The people had dresses, slacks, rainbow dresses, arm sleeves, rubber bands... people had eye lashes. A little after four she began drawing for 3+ hours a day.

What is interesting is that her drawing show a natural symmetry.... not all of them, but I've seen many of her drawings that would have a couple in the middle, and two smaller children on either side, they'd be centered in a pavillion. Buildings she made with unit blocks were very aestheticly pleasing, because there was a bunch of symmetry.

I've always suspected she is very strong mathmatically, and I've always felt that symmetry was a very early sign of it. I may be wrong, but her quantitative reasoning was high enough to qualify her for gifted.

My other daughter started with more of the traditional tadpole person, except that was when she had just turned two. She was drawing for multiple hours a day also by the time she was three.

Tammy

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Lisa1970

· #11 · Apr 14, 2009

My sons, 2 of which are already labeled as highly gifted and profundly gifted, do not draw complex at all. I always read that how a child draws is a sign of giftedness. Then it will go on to say the number of features on a person that someone draws is the standard for this measure. But I am not seeing this to be true. In fact, the "signs" of giftedness lists never seem to fit in the real world.

AllisonR

Discussion Starter · #12 · Apr 14, 2009

Thanks for all the replies. It is interesting to see how different kids progress. My son is very VS, and very mathematically inclined, and somewhat of a perfectionist, and this seems to go with so many of the other posting about DCs drawing very symmetrical imagery, until they could do "perfect" people.

quaz

· #13 · Apr 14, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by AllisonR

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Thanks for all the replies. It is interesting to see how different kids progress. My son is very VS, and very mathematically inclined, and somewhat of a perfectionist, and this seems to go with so many of the other posting about DCs drawing very symmetrical imagery, until they could do "perfect" people.

Yes, this is very much my daughter....

VS, mathematically inclined, and somewhat a perfectionist.

In her case, the one difference is that when she finally got past the idea she couldn't draw (she wouldn't even touch crayons or scribble until she was 3 1/2), she went straight to people and that has always been her dominant focus.

Tammy

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clipfish

· #14 · Apr 14, 2009

In almost every single drawing we got from DS's preschool, he would draw a black X on the paper, corner to corner.
Other kids would send home a drawing of people and castles and animals. We would get 3-5 drawings: all black Xs. Sometimes the X would be further divided, or have designs in each quadrant. Ever so often we got a grey X. I always assumed some one else must have been using the black marker. LOL.

We also got lots of papers with the same 'equation' on them: X + X = [X]. We called it his secret equation.

A year later, we get super-intricate drawings of space shuttles and telescopes and robots.

loraxc

· #15 · Apr 15, 2009

Quote:

I think she liked drawing something that was supposed to look like a blob with stick legs, rather than attempting people and having them come out looking like blobs with stick legs.

When DD first drew a blob with legs, she said it was a jellyfish, which was exactly what it looked like. I thought that was kind of awesome.

DD was very interesting with drawing because she didn't really do anything representational at all till nearly 4, then she went from tadpole people to detailed and elaborate scenes within a couple of weeks. At 5, she spends at least 2 hours a day drawing and produces hundreds upon hundreds of drawings a month. She is not extremely technically proficient, but she is extremely good at conveying movement and giving her people and cats expression and verve.

alexsam

· #16 · Apr 16, 2009

Yes, another one for the perfectionism...

But I also want to put a quick plug in for a routine eye exam. DS1 never really wanted to draw. Or write. He did some of the things you are talking about- shapes and balanced things, but really, he was not interested. When we spoke with an educational specialist about the possibility of giftedness, she recommended an eye exam, as she expected him to be doing *something more*. I was kind of in the mindset of "If he wants to draw, he'll draw! If not, whatever." Well, turns out he has 60/20 vision and a lazy eye. We had NO idea. From that time on we have had glasses, patching, therapy, etc. He's starting to catch up with drawing and writing, but with the vision issues, we've struggled.

I totally get the perfectionism (that has been a double issue for us- it makes DS VERY resistant to writing and drawing). But, if you can, go for a routine eye exam (they can do them starting with infants). It is worth it.

OGirlieMama

· #17 · Apr 16, 2009

One of my girls (they're 3) draws what I consider a standard face and likes to write her name on the page. Her twin just scribbles scribbles scribbles with the crayons. Until you give her the magnadoodle, and then she draws all sorts of animals, and scenes. I have to grab the camera fast each time so I get at least some memento of her art. I think a lot of it is pretty remarkable for her age, and I find it a little frustrating that she only does that stuff in such an ephemeral medium!

reezley

· #18 · Apr 17, 2009

2

Quote:

Originally Posted by OGirlieMama

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One of my girls (they're 3) draws what I consider a standard face and likes to write her name on the page. Her twin just scribbles scribbles scribbles with the crayons. Until you give her the magnadoodle, and then she draws all sorts of animals, and scenes. I have to grab the camera fast each time so I get at least some memento of her art. I think a lot of it is pretty remarkable for her age, and I find it a little frustrating that she only does that stuff in such an ephemeral medium!

I have found the same to be true with my kids! They seem to tend to mostly play with the colors if they have crayons and paper. On the magnadoodle- where they do 97% of their drawing - they actually draw stuff. And I take photos of good samples of their work too! (Magnadoodle with a "print" function anyone?

Yikes, I'm sure it exists.) Both ds's started drawing faces (circle head, eyes, and smile) when they were 2 (ds2 is 2 now). DS1 does still draw "things" sometimes, but mostly letters, numbers, words, digital clock times, funny ways to write letters, etc. DS2 has always been into drawing and his faces are getting more complicated now - pupils, hair, happy OR sad face. No arms/legs yet. He's following a normal path I guess - just a little early?

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clipfish

· #19 · Apr 17, 2009

2

Quote:

Originally Posted by reezley

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I have found the same to be true with my kids! They seem to tend to mostly play with the colors if they have crayons and paper. On the magnadoodle- where they do 97% of their drawing - they actually draw stuff. And I take photos of good samples of their work too! (Magnadoodle with a "print" function anyone?

Yikes, I'm sure it exists.) Both ds's started drawing faces (circle head, eyes, and smile) when they were 2 (ds2 is 2 now). DS1 does still draw "things" sometimes, but mostly letters, numbers, words, digital clock times, funny ways to write letters, etc. DS2 has always been into drawing and his faces are getting more complicated now - pupils, hair, happy OR sad face. No arms/legs yet. He's following a normal path I guess - just a little early?

Same here too. I've just attributed to the perfectionist thing...no pressure as it will be erased momentarily.

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quaz

· #20 · Apr 17, 2009

This is the reason my dd drew on the whiteboard for years... it has that erasable aspect to it, so mistakes are EASILY corrected. It helps with kiddos that are precise/perfectionistic, or just having something in their mind's eye that they need to get right.

Magnadoodle type board, has that easy mistake fixing aspect... one just erases with a swipe (or in some case the pen can erase one section), and ones redoes or fixes the picture.

Tammy

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