Art as a Learning Form

Encouraging your child to embrace and learn about art is an important way to develop their creativity. Children instinctively take to crayons and paper at a young age. Art can be a fun activity that can also allow for an avenue of self-expression.

Art professor, Viktor Lowenfeld, first described how a child’s artistic development follows a common pattern or a series of stages from age two to twelve in his influential book Creative and Mental Growth in 1947.  At or before age 2, children begin to scribble. They may begin to name their scribbles about 6 months later. At 3 and 4 children start pictorializing people. As 5 and 6 year olds, they can draw more detailed people with defined arms, legs, heads and bodies and may even add extras like teeth, hair, and other accessories. Illustrations are now often lined up near the top or bottom rather than floating somewhere in the middle. Between ages 7-12, children refine their drawings and may include action scenes or three-dimensional pictures.

My 4-½ year old daughter’s drawings have become more detailed and her control with a pencil and pen is much improved since the days of scribbling, but even before a year old, Kaila was scribbling with crayons. I loved to color as a child too, so I often sit down and color with her on our kitchen table. We have quite the collection of art medium, including crayons, colored pencils, markers, paints, paper, an easel, sidewalk chalk, bath crayons and her favorite, Crayola Color Wonder books.

If you try some of these, remember things could get messy, so be prepared with a smock or old clothing and an area where your child can be allowed to be messy.

Afterwards, display your child’s artwork with pride. Our refrigerator is always decorated with Kaila’s most recent creation. Right now it is adorned with an American flag she made in school. She enjoys seeing my positive reaction to her art, and this encourages her to create more.

I have kept a selection of her drawings and art in a file. I feel it might be nice for her to have some of her artwork from childhood once she is an adult.

Even if your child doesn’t turn into the next Pablo Picasso, you may both appreciate the progression from random scribbles to detailed landscapes.