Making Marks Make Sense

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Children from an early age enjoy making marks (Matthews, 2003). Many theories have been comprised on children’s development however when talking about the arts eduction one theory is closely linked (McAuliffe, 2007). Work by Lowenfeld and Bittain (1987) describes 4 stages that can help educational practitioners engage and understand more about a child’s work. Although with times changing and children coming from various backgrounds and environments it is not as easy to simply put a child in a specific stage (McAuliffe, 2007). As we grow many of us loose touch with our imaginative and creative abilities however to a child a simple line on a piece of paper could be an intrepretation of their whole world, thoughts and feelings. That scribble that we may see as a mess could be a monster flying on a rocket ship to planet Mars.

Mark making in the early years (The scribble stage) . This drawing shows that the child has made rotational marks and that the pencil stays in contact throughout. The child is developing his fine and gross motor skills through art. The child is expressing something that comes naturally to him.

Being a creative person myself I find it upsetting that as adults many of us feel that drawings and creative pieces of work need to be “perfect” or represent something that we as adults understand and see in our lives.

As children develop they begin to focus on features and many have a fear of not being accurate (McAuliffe, 2007).

The gang stage. This child has focused on the many features and specific details on a fish. There is evidence of spatial perspective.

We also need to understand that as teachers we can incorporate the arts into various areas of the curriculum. Literacy and numeracy often take priority in educational environments however enabling children to engage in these subjects can be done by incorporating the arts into these areas. Giving children a story to read or a short passage from a piece of literature that they are studying and allowing them to doodle or draw both on or around that piece of writing allows children to interact with the document and express what they understand and feel without giving words the priority.

Interlinking literacy and art. This child has been multi modal and created a visual piece of work that has a short passage on it. Children can often express a theme related to literature through a drawing.

In most classrooms a child is asked to write a sentence and draw a picture about their sentence however what if as educators we allow children to express their understanding of literature through art.

A piece of literature that I annotated earlier in today’s lecture (19.09.17). Through doing this I understood how this could be beneficial in the classroom. Children can draw from the text feelings and themes and by literally drawing on the text they are more likely to engage and remember that piece of literature.

It is clear that the arts allow children to develop in all areas of the curriculum and no matter what sage of development a child is at there ‘mark making’ matters.

References:

Matthews, J. (2003) Drawing and Painting: Children and Visual Representation. 1st ed. London: SAGE publications.

McAuliffe, D. (2007) Fondation and Primary Settings. In Teaching Art and Design 3-11. (Edited by Sue Cox, Robert Watts, Judy Grahame, Steve Herne and Diarmuid McAuliffe) London: Continuum.

 

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