Week two was all about children’s development in art and design, and how there artistic abilities change as they get older. We spent the morning looking at a children’s art archive, with some of the pieces dating back more than thirty years! The artwork was separated into three sections; lower, upper and middle primary, so we could see the development in each group. It showed us that the paintings in the lower and middle primary groups were the most creative and imaginative. When the pupils reached upper primary level their imagination had begun to fall away and they were only producing the artwork so as to fulfil an instruction or request. You could also see that in the upper primary the children were less likely to create their own ideas, and were using other artists work to inspire them. You could see replications of Picasso, Andy Warhol, Van Gogh and many other well known artists.
Lowenfield and Brittain (1987) created the idea that artistic development happened in stages, this idea or artistic stage theory helps individuals understand not just the way in which young people’s artwork is conceived and how it can be taught but how we can become better at art ourselves.
- Identified scribbling stage (2-4 years). These are the ages in which children draw purely to make marks. At this point, there is no representation in their drawing as it is just done for enjoyment.
- Pre-schematic stage (4-7 years). At this stage, connections are being made between what the individuals are drawing and the physical world around them. This is the stage where a child will start to make the connection of communicating through their drawings.
- Schematic stage (7-9 years). Children become more critical of their own work, overlapping can be seen and a sense of spatial relationships is more evident.
- Gang stage (9-12 years). Children begin to doubt their abilities and become less expressive and creative in their work. This is the stage in which many individuals will ‘copy’ art work such as famous artists. They may also begin to incorporate pop culture into their work, choosing to draw something they can see rather than imagine.
The artwork we saw was separated into these groups with the identified scribbling and pre-schematic stages joined together in one class of lower primary. Below are just a few example of the wonderful artwork we were lucky enough to see.
Examples of pre-schematic stage
Examples of schematic stage.
Examples of gang stage.
As you can see the children’s work become more legible and defined as they go through the stages, but you can also see that a lot of the ‘messiness’ and creativity/imagination has been lost as well. This happens because the children begin to doubt their abilities and they lose confidence in the work they produce. They feel like their work isn’t ‘good’ enough because their work doesn’t look like those of the famous artists that they have studied.
I really enjoyed looking at the art archive as it gave me a visual representation of the stages that children go through in terms of art and the arts. I think I am now going to be more inclined to encourage 100% creativity when on placement and now I know that the idea of not knowing what will happen or come out of an activity is not a bad thing and that I should accept that what happens, happens!
