fig. 14: family portrait

fig. 15: family portrait

Once a child has established a definite symbol (or schema) for a person, it will be repeated again and again without much variation unless a particular experience causes the child to modify the concepts involved. For instance, a child may exaggerate, change or embellish certain parts of a "person" symbol in order to reveal something unique or special about a particular person or activity being depicted. Also, experiences which stimulate children's awareness of the various actions and functions of the human figure will often lead to changes in the way they symbolize a person and to greater flexibility in their future depictions of people. For instance, children at this age particularly enjoy and benefit from motivational topics involving sports and story-telling activities.

One of the more noticeable changes that occur in the drawings of children around the age of five or six involves the introduction of the base line to organize objects in space (Figure 17). No longer do objects appear to float all over the page as seen in children's earlier attempts at representation. Children are now aware of relationships between the objects that they create and they recognize that these objects have a definite place on the ground.

Initially, children will line up people, houses and trees along the bottom edge of the paper. They soon realize, however, that a line drawn across the paper can serve as a ground, a floor or any base upon which people and objects rest. Later on, multiple baselines may be drawn with objects lined up on each of them (Figure 18). The inclusion of two or more baselines in a drawing sometimes occurs when a child wishes to portray distance in his or her drawing. This graphic solution to representing three-dimensional space can also be found in adult art from many cultures and times.

As children's understanding of the world becomes more complex they feel the need to represent spatial relationships more authentically. Accordingly, the base line eventually disappears in the drawings of older children and the space below the base line takes on the meaning of a ground plane.

fig. 17: baseline drawing

fig. 18: two baselines

In addition to the invention of the base line, children come up with a number of other ingenious ways to depict space in their drawings. One of these involves showing events that occur over time within one drawing or a sequence of drawings (Figures 19 and 20). These space-and-time representations, as they are called (Lowenfeld, 1975), result from children's growing concern for telling stories and for showing action in their art work. Interest in creating visual narratives usually starts around the age of five and then grows stronger as children get older (Wilson & Wilson, 1982).

Another special type of drawing that children begin making around the age of five or six is the X-ray drawing in which an object appears transparent or has a "cutaway" provided so that one can see inside. Typically, this type of drawing is done whenever the inside of something is of greater importance than the outside. For instance, children will often use the X-ray technique to show the inside of their houses, their school, or their family car. Figure 20 shows an unusually insightful X-ray representation by five-year-old boy of his mother whom was pregnant at the time. Note the inclusion of the umbilical cord connecting the baby with its mother. This is an excellent illustration of how children use their active knowledge of a subject when drawing a picture of it.

fig. 20: "boxers"

fig.21: mother

With all the visual materials available to American children today in the form of photographs, book illustrations, comics, television, movies, and video games, it seems only natural that they will "borrow" from these cultural sources in creating their own art work (Wilson & Wilson, 1982). Children as young as four may include culturally-derived imagery in their drawings, but the influence of the popular media is most noticeable among older children. Indeed, one will find in the typical fifth-grade classroom a number of aspiring comic-book artists as well as other children with a keen interest in drawing sports heroes, rock stars, fashion figures, airplanes, space vehicles, and sports cars.

While many children simply copy their favorite superheros and comic-book characters, some also invent their own characters and narrative plots (Figure 22). In doing so, these children frequently turn to television, movies and comic books for their models. They draw figures that run, leap and fly across several frames; zoom-in for a close-up of their heroine; and show perspective and dimensionality in ways that children a generation ago couldn't do. Rather than discourage such creative activity, teachers and parents should take full advantage of children's fascination with popular culture and use it to develop their drawing abilities beyond the most basic level.

fig. 22: super-heros

- Marjorie Wilson

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