Scribbles – It is Serious! Or What, How and Why Our Children Draw

Children are mysterious creatures. Just having arrived in our world, they already can do so much! They demonstrate us their bright individuality since their birth and as time goes it becomes more and more interesting. For example, isn’t it surprising that absolutely all the children draw? Moreover, they draw in the same way – according to their age.

The Specialists’ Opinion

What does drawing and painting add to the child’s development? I am quoting from here: “Artistic activity is important not only for mastering the skills of drawing but also, which is more important, for the development of general abilities which will manifest in the future. The most important thing is not to miss the earliest and then the preschool ages which are the most favourable periods for their development. Lately, it will be impossible to fill in the gap fully. Art activity develops aesthetic perception of the world, creative abilities and intellect in your child. The children participating in art activities are able to respond to the surrounding world emotionally, to feel beauty and ugliness in human relations and in the world of things, to realize and express their feelings. The child starts watching the environment with more attention. He learns to notice the peculiarity and uniqueness of objects and things. In the process of drawing/painting the ability to take a good look at things, listen to everything attentively, to analyze things and phenomena, to see the similar and the different in them, to train the hand and eye, to practice the coordination of visual and motion analyzers, etc is developing.

A Mother’s Observation

When Arseny had grown up to the stage of the “organized drawing with a pencil” (means that the toddler is able to decide what he would like to express with his drawing and his lines and points are not occasional), I was amazed that already in this “pre-art” pictures (as scientists call them) there is so much beauty and grace.

Moreover, there was “connectedness of composition” in them. I came across this term in the article devoted, strange it may seem, not to children’s drawing but to the drawing of… primates . And that article is called “Monkeys Draw Like Children” Let me quote a bit, “The pictures of monkeys which are non-art in general, though they do not resemble any object, possess all the features of connectedness in composition. The lines coming to one and the same point in the middle of the object make one pay attention to them. The brightest sport attracts one’s attention. If the thickness of the line is little comparing to the size of the image, the point of connection of the lines is not bright and our attention moves to it through the whole composition flowing from the general image of the figure to the crossing point. If the lines are thicker, our attention meets them first afterwards spreading about the whole image”.

Why are the pictures of monkeys and of other animals of wide popularity? They are even sold by auction. But little is said about the beauty of a child’s picture… In our opinion, children can make much more beautiful things – check for yourself: http://community.livejournal.com/avisual/27095.html.

By the way, in contrast to many psychologists and teachers, designers have been admiring children’s masterpieces for a long time already and they even use them for the creation of their own works. Look how beautiful they are:

Jewelry (and also handbags, clothes, etc.) with the use of children’s pictures: http://firstscribbles.com/FirstScribblesProductline.html

And here you can see soft toys made according to children’s pictures:http://voobrazhala.ru/

And such design was made by our Arseny (19 mo) on my bathroom scales. I like it so much!

The Incomprehensible

When I was introducing the pencil to Arseny, I always drew a concentric spiral, spontaneously. Perhaps, it happened because it is the most beautiful figure of all the geometric figures. We also can often find it in nature – galaxies, sprouts, as well as on the shells of mollusks and snails

May be because of the concentric spiral soon became the main motive in Arseny’s art works.

But not just a spiral but a whole composition (!) in a circle shape-spiral and a little point inside or beside it. It is interesting in what manner Arseny draws it: the whole image is made with one complicated movement, without any taking off of his hand from the paper. Moreover, some certain rhythm is followed in the process of drawing – the circle-spiral is being drawn slowly then the speed of the movement of the hand increases and reaches its maximum when drawing the little point. It almost looks like a dance. Charmingly beautiful.

Looking through the tons of our son’s drawings I suddenly understood what they remind me of. A living cell – with a kernel and its coat. Or an egg – with a shell and a yolk inside. Sometimes, however, this yolk turned out to be not inside but outside – but that is the whole idea: the chicken has left its egg! What do you think of that?

The Answer

And now attention: here is our interpretation of the picture which took part in our mini-contest. We think that Arseny depicted himself in his mummy’s belly at the age of minus some months Does it really seem like it? Here is everything that is needed: the placenta and the navel string .

Of course, it is a joke but there is some truth in each joke. It is so surprising how accurately Arseny could grasp the essence of our world order – the Great gives life to the Little, in His/Her image and likeness…

Warm regards,

Natalie and Anastasia

Illustrations to the Article

Photos by the authors

You can read this article in Russian here.