Drawing is a favourite and compelling activity for most children. It begins in infancy with those first magical marks, which, with experience, may develop into complex drawings. Once children become aware of the effects they can create with mark-making, drawing becomes a way of exploring real and imaginary worlds where they can safely play with ideas, feelings and experiences. It also provides a highly motivating and enjoyable context for problem-solving activities.
Drawing is a sensory activity. All children should therefore be helped to develop awareness of their world, and of themselves in that world, through looking, touching, listening and, where appropriate, through movement that explores their relationship with objects, places and events in their lives. Helpingthem to develop a sense of curiosity about the world around them will help to expand their store of ideas about it and their ways of expressing them through drawing. Access to a wide variety of drawing tools and materials, and time to enjoy discovering their possibilities for visual expression, are equally important.
Starting points for drawing
Children need some form of stimulus as a starting point for drawing activities. These could include
Drawing activities based on children's experiences, real or imagined, give them opportunities to
- discover drawing as a way of communicating
- invent and develop their graphic symbols for the human figure, animals and a wide variety of observed objects
- show in a variety of ways how figures and objects relate to each other in space and with increasingly workedout contexts
- explore pattern and texture as ways of developing a drawing further
- use drawing to create and express imaginative worlds.
The subject matter is all-important with children at infant level, and the more relevant it is to their experience and understanding the more inventive and expressive their drawings are likely to be. They will enjoy drawing simple themes such as 'myself', 'my pet', 'my favourite toy' or 'my house'. A strong element of make-believe is involved as pre-school children name their scribble-pictures, and this should be respected, as it continues in the playlife of their pictures: for example, that great big curve means that the car sped around the corner. Mark-making typically develops from these scribblepictures to more controlled shapes that relate to the world they know. Their drawings are a personal code for what they want to express visually.
Children will often experiment with the concept of space on paper: things becoming hidden, going up or down, in front or behind, sometimes using the front and back of the page in a vivid play activity. When discussing their work with them it is important to discuss content, as well as the kinds of lines and shapes they make, so that they feel they are communicating. Imaginative themes from stories, poems and songs may be introduced as they progress.
Once children develop a schema, or personal set of symbols for what they want to express visually, they will need more directed looking as they try for more detail and more realism in their drawing. This occurs typically around the end of the infant cycle, when they are still most interested in their own everyday lives of family, friends, home, play and playthings. Drawing themes could be chosen that variously emphasise texture, pattern or the human figure engaged in some activity. Their sense of context will by now have become more important to them: where they are, what they are doing, who they are with. They will, typically, use a baseline on which to place figures or objects. Occasionally 'fold-over' drawings are used to express the concept of space by showing figures (or objects) arranged in a circle, or on opposite sides, upside down on one side. Imaginative themes can be introduced by lively discussions that evoke the visual qualities and narrative line of stories, poems, songs, television programmes, computer games or films.
Through opportunities to work and rework their schemas, their drawings will become more analytical and they will aim for more realistic effects. At this stage (about third or fourth class) they will need a programme that places greater emphasis on drawing from close observation and on more developed ways of suggesting spatial organisation on a page. Overlapping shapes, figures and objects would now be a typical way of organising space and suggesting depth on a plane. Working from observation will also help them later when drawing themes from memory and imagination. A wealth of invented pattern and detail should be encouraged in their drawings of imaginary happenings, places, machines, buildings or monsters. Because they are now generally at a peak of expressiveness, it is important that they develop confidence in their work at this stage.
Towards the end of the primary cycle, children would have developed a certain sensitivity to drawing media, and a keener sense of observation. With experience, they will use line quality and texture for more subtle suggestions and will express themselves more purposefully. It is essential that they continue to work from direct observation so as to progress beyond the stage of symbols.
Figure drawing from close observation, especially of each other engaged in different activities, can help to sharpen observation and to develop beyond the repeated use of symbols for human beings. Attention should be drawn informally to the underlying form and proportions of the figure and to the negative shapes created by the arms or legs, before drawing details of clothing or gear, for example.
In drawing portraits, development from the frontal pose to the three-quarter or full profile view should be encouraged. Attention should be drawn informally to the basic proportions of the head and to the way light falls on the forms of the figure. Details such as jewellery, headgear, a held object or a significant setting add interest. Looking at different portrait styles can lead to discussions on ways of drawing facial features.
EXEMPLAR 7 - A portrait of 'My family and me' (first and second classes)
EXEMPLAR 8 - Drawing an imaginary creature or an imagined place (all levels)
EXEMPLAR 9 - Organising space and creating imaginative detail (fourth to sixth classes)
Focusing on materials and tools gives children opportunities to
- enjoy the excitement of experimenting with mark-making
- become aware of the expressive effects they can create with a variety of drawing media and learn to use them with confidence
- enjoy the immediacy of drawing media to explore the visual world, to communicate their understanding of what they see and imagine, to clarify ideas and to design and invent.
Drawing materials and tools would include a variety of pencils (2B, 4B and 6B, for example, as well as charcoal, conté and coloured pencils), crayons, pastels, chalks, markers, inks and paints. Paper could include newsprint, sugar paper, computer paper, cartridge, recycled paper and greaseproof paper which is particularly suitable for rubbings. Fine-grain paper is more suitable for drawing with graphite pencils or coloured pencils, and mediumgrain is suitable for drawing with pastels, crayons and coloured chalks. Materials and tools are chosen to suit the activity and the level of experience of the children.
Less experienced children should start with free experiments on cheap paper, discussing the marks that emerge: thick, thin, rounded, sharp, fuzzy, light or dark, for example. The kinds of shapes that emerge could be discussed in the same way: long, short, thin, fat, straight-edged or curvy. Their geometric aspects should not be unduly emphasised, and younger children could be encouraged to make arm or larger body movements and rhythms to help them experience and understand the concepts of shape and space. Some drawing materials and tools should be chosen specially for their varied textures, and a growing interest in pattern should be encouraged by helping the children to discover the effects of repeated marks, lines and shapes.
EXEMPLAR 10 - Creating a variety of effects with drawing tools (all levels)
Learning to look closely at natural and manufactured objects will help to develop children's drawing abilities and to focus and sharpen observation. They will begin to
- notice rhythms, textures and shapes and interpret them in drawings
- notice how edges can be hard, soft or rough and how they help to define the character of an object
- become aware of the threedimensional nature of form and notice form in objects
- notice light and shade on simple forms and express them in tonal drawings
- clarify and develop design ideas.
It is important to guide children's looking rather than their drawing. Children will enjoy observing and interpreting growth in nature, which would include plants, sea shells, tree bark and wood grain. Appropriate toys and playthings could also be interpreted with a variety of drawing media. More experienced children will be capable of drawing objects from direct observation, concentrating on their essential features. Sectioned fruit and vegetables or pieces of broken machinery or toys are ideal for this kind of exercise.
In time they will begin to notice areas of light and shade in closely observed objects. Younger children will enjoy drawing simple arrangements of flowers or grasses set upright in a container, or shelves holding favourite things, and talking about the shapes and the light and dark areas created. Still life arrangements of simple boxes and rounded forms can be interpreted in both two- and three-dimensional work. More experienced children may be involved in building up a composition in a variety of ways, e.g. by overlapping, by grouping or by laying out objects in a straight line.
A variety of approaches should be taken when drawing from observation, for example using contour drawing to capture quickly the spirit or character of a figure or object, using tone only to suggest volume and form, emphasising planes to suggest the third dimension on a flat surface and concentrating on finding ways to suggest texture.
Shading, colour and tone or receding planes could be used to suggest distance on a page: drawing the nearer shapes, objects or figures larger, lower on the page and in some detail, and those further away progressively smaller, higher on the page and in less detail. Depth in space could also be created by juxtaposing and overlapping shapes, objects and figures.
EXEMPLAR 11 - Exploring light and dark: creating three-dimensional effects (fifth and sixth classes)
EXEMPLAR 12 - Drawing from observation: drawing a flower (all levels)
As they progress they will be interested in looking closely at, and drawing details of, the wider environment. This could include drawing the school (or other building) from as many viewpoints as possible in line and colour. Classroom windows could be used to position objects in the composition, on the inside looking out or on the outside looking in. More experienced children could use a viewfinder to isolate sections of the school grounds, the street, a winding path or a car park with, for example, trees, vegetation or groups of people.
Drawing interior spaces could be approached in the same way and would challenge children to solve problems of spatial relationships. Children may suggest space by placing figures and objects close together, or side by side, using one or more horizontals. Later, a sense of 'in front' and 'behind' may be suggested by overlapping. As they become more experienced they may suggest space in their drawings by including, for example, a window and a view beyond it.
Children of all ages will enjoy observing, discussing and trying to capture the suggestion of patterns created by movement in nature, for example the patterns of drops of rain falling into a basin of water, of heavy rain as it forms puddles, of the sky in various moods, of wind or snowstorms or of leaves on a tree in the wind.
EXEMPLAR 13 - Drawing the school from different viewpoints (fifth and sixth classes)