Creativity and Intelligence are not the same thing.

Creativity is a special type of problem solving ability that is employed when conventional solutions won’t work. Creativity calls for flexibility and adaptability in the way someone thinks.

With young children creativity should focus in developing and generating new ideas. It is a brain storming process.

Encourage creativity by providing children with the opportunity and confidence to explore, take risks, challenge assumptions and see things in a new way.

More details are in the video.

All young children take great pleasure in moving a crayon or pencil across a surface and leaving a mark. This form of mark-making or “scribbling” represents children’s first self-initiated encounters with art.

Children typically begin scribbling around one-and-a-half years of age. Most observers of child drawing believe that children engage in scribbling not to draw a picture of something; rather they do so for the pure enjoyment of moving their arms and making marks on a surface. Recently, however, a few researchers have challenged this traditional view by showing that young children do occasionally experiment with representation even though their scribbles may not contain any recognizable forms. This new perspective suggests that children’s earliest mark-making activities may be more complex than previously thought.

When children first start scribbling they usually don’t realize they can make the marks do what they want. They often scribble in a random fashion by swinging their arms back and forth across the drawing surface. They may even look away from the page as they work. But, it doesn’t take long for children to recognize the relationship between their movements and the marks on the paper. As this discovery unfolds, children begin to control their scribbles by varying their motions and by repeating certain lines that give them particular pleasure. Longitudinal marks in one or more directions may result. Circular patterns and geometric shapes begin to appear as childrens perceptual and motor abilities increase. Lines are combined with shapes to form various patterns and designs. Letter forms, especially those in the child’s name, may show up among the marks on the page.

Not only is scribbling a motorically pleasurable activity, but children are also interested in the traces that their motor activity leaves on a surface. -Ellen Winner

As children gain control of the marks on the page, they will start to name their scribbles and engage in imaginative play when drawing. A child may announce what he or she is going to draw before beginning or may look at the marks on the page afterwards and say, “This is mommy.” On another day, the child may look at the same drawing and say, “This is my dog.” To the adult, these drawings may be neither recognizable nor remarkably different from early scribbles done by the child. Yet, to the child making them, these seemingly unreadable marks do have real meaning.

It is unfortunate that the very word “scribble” has negative connotations for adults. -Viktor Lowenfeld

Talking With Scribblers

When talking with the beginning scribbler, simply comment on the child’s movements when scribbling. For instance, notice how fast the child’s arm is moving or how big the child’s movements are. As the child gains control of scribbling, comment on the variety of movements and different marks the child has made. For instance, notice the number of circles the child has made or the “nice lines going around the page.”

Just as the babbling child makes the sounds that will, in combination, becomes words, the scribbling child makes the lines and shapes that will, in combination, become recognizable objects.-Marjorie Wilson

As the child starts naming his or her scribbles, listen to the child’s comments and use the meanings offered by the child as a source for dialogue. For instance, if the child says, “This is daddy,” ask questions like “Is your daddy tall? Does he pick you up? Where do you go with your daddy?” If the child says, “I’m running,” ask questions like “Do you like to run on the playground?” or “Where are you running?” Encouraging the child to verbalize his or her thoughts, feelings and experiences independently shows the child that you value what he or she has done. This sort of thoughtful praise will help children to be enthusiastic and imaginative in their future art encounters.

By Craig Roland -

Associate Professor of art education at the University of Florida

Around three to four years of age, children begin to combine the circle with one or more lines in order to represent a human figure. These figures typically start out looking like “tadpoles” and then gradually become “head-feet” symbols. It is not uncommon for children’s first representations of the figure to be highly unrealistic or to be missing a neck, body, arms, fingers, feet, or toes. Children may, in fact, draw two tadpoles to show their mother and father without making visible distinctions between the two figures.

By Craig Roland

Associate Professor of art education at the University of Florida

]]> http://www.creativecastle.net/2nd-stage-of-art-development-pre-symbolism/feed/ http://www.creativecastle.net/2nd-stage-of-art-development-pre-symbolism/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/creative-castle/~3/QWxbnHdMxgg/ http://www.creativecastle.net/3rd-stage-of-development/#comments Tue, 10 Feb 2009 03:53:18 +0000 admin http://www.creativecastle.net/?p=182 SYMBOLISM

By the age of five or six, most children have developed a repertoire of graphic equivalents or symbols for the things in their environment including a house, a tree, a person, and so on. These symbols are highly individualized since they result from childrens conceptual understanding rather than observation of the world around them. For example, each child’s symbol for a person will be quite different from any other child’s

The symbols that children, five and six years old, draw for a person usually have a clearly differentiated head and trunk with arms and legs placed in the appropriate locations. Details such as clothing, hands, feet, fingers, nose, and teeth may also receive the attention of individual children. As previously mentioned, the omission of details in a child’s drawing is no cause for immediate concern. The child may simply neglect to include a certain feature due to its lack of importance in the activity being drawn.

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.

The Introduction of the Baseline

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  No longer do objects appear to float all over the page as seen in childrens 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.  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.

Special Visual Effects

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.  These space-and-time representations, as they are called (Lowenfeld, 1975), result from childrens 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. Drawings may show an X-ray representation of a childs mother whom is pregnant.

Children’s Art and Cultural Images

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 super heros and comic-book characters, some also invent their own characters and narrative plots  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.

By Craig Roland

Associate Professor of art education at the University of Florida

By the age of nine or ten, many children exhibit greater visual awareness of the things around them. As a result, they become increasingly conscious of details and proportion in what they are drawing. They typically include body parts such as lips, fingernails, hairstyles, and joints in their drawings of people. They also show more interest than before in drawing people in action poses and in costumes.

This new concern for making their pictures look “right” in terms of detail and proportion leads to a crisis for many older children. In trying to draw realistically, children’s efforts often fall short of their expectations and they quickly become disappointed. Some search for adult-like skills by copying illustrations in books and magazines. More often, however, children become increasingly critical of their graphic abilities and begin to show a reluctance to engage in drawing activities as they grow older. Given the increased emphasis on “realism” among children during their preadolescent years, art instruction that focuses on visual description and observational techniques can be particularly beneficial at this age. Indeed, most children are quite capable of attaining the realistic quality they so desire in their art work  But, only if they receive the proper instruction which enables them to develop the competencies required to do so.

The Representation of Three-Dimensional Space

Whereas younger children become engrossed in the meanings and actions of subjects as they draw them, older children tend to be more concerned with whether their pictures resemble what it is they are drawing. This interest in visual description typically emerges around the age of nine or ten as children begin to adopt their culture’s conventions for representing a three-dimensional scene on a two-dimensional surface (Winner, 1982). No longer are objects placed side by side on a baseline as seen in younger children’s drawings. Now children attempt to arrange the things they draw in relation to one another on the page. In doing so, they begin to show how the position of a viewer influences the image drawn. They begin to draw objects that overlap one another and that diminish in size. They also begin to use diagonals to show the recession of planes in space.

As children’s readiness and interest in showing depth in their pictures becomes apparent, having them study the ways in which various adult artists use overlap, diminishing size and linear perspective within their works might be helpful. But, children need to understand that the use of these pictorial devices is only one way of organizing space and that many artists today have abandoned such conventions in favor of developing more personal and expressive ways of seeing and making art.

Visual Metaphor and Expressive Imagery

Many older children continue to draw and paint symbolically in spite of the increased concern for realism in their art work. Indeed, children’s emerging capacity for abstract thought enables them to begin conceiving of images as visual metaphors. When children draw or paint metaphorically, they are using images to suggest an idea or emotion beyond the specific object depicted. For instance, older children are able to recognize that a picture of an isolated tree suggests loneliness and despair, or that a stag overlooking a range of mountains suggests nobility. The ability to use images metaphorically, depends on being able to entertain two levels of symbolization at once. The artist must decide which object best represents the concept or emotion and which lines, shapes and colors best represent the object (Smith, 1983).

Older children are just beginning to discover the possibilities of visual metaphor and that images can convey meanings beyond the object depicted. In order to deepen this understanding and prevent children’s concern for realism from dampening their creative spirit, the teacher should introduce themes that deal with the expression of certain emotions or concepts through visual metaphor. For instance, children might be asked to imagine themselves as an animal or an inanimate object and to represent themselves as such in a drawing or painting.

By Craig Roland

Associate Professor of art education at the University of Florida

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