Artistic Stages in Children

How children use the elements and principles of art to create an original artwork varies. The artwork they create reflects their overall level of development - intellectual, emotional, social, physical, as well as their experience with art.

Artistic Stages will help you examine children's art in relationship to artistic development. This will help you form realistic expectations of the children's artwork as they do art activities. Within any group of children there will be a range of skills, abilities, and interests. Consider your children’s skills, abilities, and interests before doing the activity.

Use Artistic Stages to answer these questions:

  • What can the child do easily?

  • What challenges or activities will excite him/her?

  • What challenges or activities are too hard for him/her to attempt and would discourage him/her?

Because children develop at different rates and it is important to tailor instructions to meet each child's needs. The illustrations and stages of artistic growth outlined below focus on skills in portraying space, proportions, and movement or action. Each stage is typical of many children at the particular grade level; however, it is not unusual to find a range of developmental skills in a group or within the work of one child.

Pre-Kindergarten

There are three stages in the preschool years - the scribbler, the controlled scribbler, and the symbolist. The scribbler (1-2 years of age) enjoys the motion of scribbling and will make marks anywhere with anything! The controlled scribbler (2-3 years of age) makes shapes such as circles, squares, crosses, X’s, and sunburst shapes. The symbolist (3-6 years of age) discovers that shapes can be named and have meaning. Circles and other shapes can become anything the child wants them to be. Stories can then be told about the shapes.

Stage 1. Usually Grades K-2

The detailed symbolist creates visual symbols to represent figures such as people, houses, and trees. The figures often seem to "float" in space. Proportions are related to the importance of a feature in the child's experience. Scribble-like lines often suggest movement. Drawings change from single figures to group activities. Drawings and storytelling go hand in hand. The drawings are free and confident expressions of the child's world.  

Stage 2. Usually Grades 1-3

In picture making, lines or borders are often used to represent the ground below and sky above. Figures may be placed along a line or at the lower edge of the paper. Proportions are shown through relative size - a house is larger than a person. Action is implied by the general position of lines and shapes.  

Stage 3. Usually Grades 3-6

The dawning-realist draws action-packed, detailed, and complex pictures with some social context like an event or family portrait. They want to be able to draw what they see. The realist tries out new ways to portray space in pictures they draw and paint. Movement is suggested through more subtle angles and curves.  

Adapted from A Palette of Fun with Arts and Crafts, a 4-H CCS publication.

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