CHILDREN’S CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT

AIM

• To understand children’s Creative development • Context• Purpose• Response

QUESTIONS?

• Why do children draw and scribble?

• What does their art mean?

• Why do they draw stick figures?

• What a child to take up a pencil and draw?

• What does it mean?

• Why is it important?

MAKING SENSE OF CHILDREN’S ART

• Easier to appreciate children’s art rather than understand or explain it?

STAGES OF CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT

STAGES OF CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT

• Scribble

FOCUS OF INQUIRY

• What children choose to include or represent (content)

• How children create (process)

• Why children create (motive)

• What they create as a result (product)

CONTENT

• Refers to the subject matter or object being presented• Content is often very personal• Representations may operate on a

number of levels: for example those not intended as communication or as a exploration of the physical nature of the body

• Adults often seek to apply meaning where there may be none or various

PROCESS

• The actions and skills involved

• Cutting, tearing, rolling, painting, marking etc

• Not all process will lead to a finished art product

• Enjoyed for its own sake

MOTIVE

• The reason underlying a child’s art• Adults may explore work in relation to

‘what does it mean?’• The child’s motivations vary from wanting

to draw a cartoon after seeing it on TV, to hearing the sound of the marker pushed hard against the paper, to drawing their experience of a family day out as a gift to a relative

PRODUCT

• Refers to the final outcome

MISINTERPRETATION

• There is a risk of misinterpretation – reading too much into the art

• Study of individual children over extended period will however reveal patterns and trends (style)

THEORIES AND STAGESEXPLANATIONS

1. Physical theory

2. Emotional theory

3. Perceptual Theory

4. Cognitive Theory

• Developing creative confidence

THEORIES: PHYSICAL

• The content, process, product, and style of children’s art are indicative of their limited physical development

• Limited hand-eye coordination, fine motor control, small muscle development, manual dexterity and visual acuity (sharpness)

• Young children’s drawings often appears immature and unintelligible as they are physically incapable of anything else

• Could a child ‘intend’ on drawing ‘something’?

• Imitation of adults or other children?

EMOTIONAL

• The content and style of children’s art is indicative of their emotional makeup, personality, temperament, and affective style• Significant objects, people, emotions and

events are emphasized, exaggerated, distorted by expressive use of colour, size, shape, line, texture, and overall treatment

• Distortion and exaggeration are used to display emphasis and communicate

PERCEPTUAL

• The content and style of children’s art reflects their perceptual development

• Not the same as physical

• Perception is influenced by the neurophysiological structure, personality, and prior learning

• The child draws what he or she perceives rather than what he or she actually sees.

• Gaps: • Art education – create the structural equivalent of

the perceived 3-d object on 2-d.• Expressive therapeutic Art – Used as a vehicle for

communication and exploration

COGNITIVE

• The content and style of children’s art is indicative of general intelligence and a function of conceptualisation• Children can only draw what they know• The concept of the object will determine

how that object will be represented• Young children rely on memories,

images, experiences and concepts

GOODENOUGH (1975)DRAW A MAN TEST

• Non-verbal measure of intelligence• It is assumed that the child’s drawing of

the human figure is a reflection of that child’s concept of a man• Conceptual maturity: appearance of limbs

and location, size and relationship of body parts• Accurate drawing = high intelligence

• Disadvantages: neglect of individual differences, experiences, and motivational, attitudinal, and environmental factors that can foster or inhibit concept formation.• Ears may be particularly relevant to a

young girl with pierced ears.• Omission of parts may be due to a whim

rather than knowledge, lack of time or interest.• Knowledge can improve observation and

via versa.

DEVELOPMENT

• Global

• General developmental: incorperates social, cultural, personality, and environmental factors as well as elements of former explainations

• Stage sequence

• Holistic

KNOWING THE STAGES WILL HELP:

• Understand where a child is developmentally

• Set appropriate but flexible expectations, neither too high or too low

• Plan a developmentally appropriate art program

• Serve as a framework for evaluation and for conferences with parents

• Appreciate the process and products of during the early years

• Artistic development follows a predictable sequence

• Fluid: can move back and forth

• Individual: own rate and pace

KELLOGG(1969)

• Scribble: foundation of future art

• 20 basic scribbles

• As the child proceeds from scribbling to picture making, he or she passes through stages: placement, shape, design, and pictorial.

PLACEMENT

• 17 different placement patterns by age 2

SHAPE• Diagrams or gestalts contain shapes including a

circle, a cross, square, and rectangle

DESIGN

• Two diagrams are put together to make combines

• 3 or more diagrams constitute an aggregate

• 4-5 pictorial stage

• Universal across humans

PICTORIAL

• Structured designs begin to look like objects

• 1. Early pictorial

• 2. Later pictorial

STAGES

• Manipulative stage: processing, exploring, making, doing, or playing with materials

• Representation stage: concern about artwork looking like something

COGNITIVE

• Combination of cognitive and general developmental • Piaget: sensory-motor, concrete activity

to symbolic, higher-order conceptual functioning• Piaget: the graphic image is a form of

semiotic or symbolic function, and as such is a representational activity that is considered to be half-way between symbolic play and mental image

• It is like play in its functional pleasure and assimilation (incorporation) and like the mental image in its effort at imitating the real • Piaget and Inhelder (1969), the very first

form of drawing does not seem imitative but is more like pure play. • Child realises marks and tries to repeat

them from memory. The child moves to intention of action

PIAGET’S STAGES

• Sensory motor (0-2)

• Preoperational (2-7) • Pre-conceptual (2-4)• Intuitive (4-7)

• Concrete operations (7-11)

• Formal operations (11 –adult)

GARDNER (1980)• Spontaneity of early creativity??• Stage 1: Preschoolers; instinctively

creative. Fresh and unusual expression• Stage 2: around 7 children’s imagination

appears stuck – stop creative process in favour of language, games or peers• 8-10 search for literal meanings rather

than metaphors: copy and collect• Literal thinking: emphasis on following

rules

• Stage 3: 15-25 convergence of the abilities to plan a creative project, implement, and evaluate it. Most people at this time place emphasis on fixed information or skills. Creative individual stands out as taking risks, attempting new projects and preserving individuality

3 year old ‘circles’

4 year old ‘baby in belly

LOWENFELD & BRITTAIN (1987)

• 2-3 years – scribbling: beginning of self-expression

• 1½-2½ Sub stage: Disordered and random scribbling

• 2,2½-3 Sub stage: Controlled scribbling

• 3,3½-4 Sub stage: Named scribbling

• 4-7 pre-schematic

• 7-9 schematic: achievement of a form concept

• 9-12 dawning realism: the gang age

• 12-14 pseudo-naturalistic/realistic drawing

• 14-17 artistic decision: adolescent art