I am often asked about my teaching practices around drawing. You might notice what appear to be quite young kids leaving the studio with spectacular results and this is no accident!
Young children (up to around age 4) are often drawn to art and drawing as a way to play with colour and line. There is joy around seeing that what they hold in their hands can make marks and they love to explore what they are seeing - in essence they are playing. One of the worst things you..
can do at this age is to judge, critique or in any way try to control what they are drawing. You will risk instilling a fear in them around what they are doing. At this age and stage we want kids to love drawing and experiment to build drawing confidence. This way they are learning core skills around discovery as well as lessons around how to hold materials and explore lines and mark making.
When children are aged around 4-8 years old they learn to recognise shapes and patterns. At this age kids learn how shapes put together can create images. We teach kids at this age and stage how to recognise shapes and letters for drawing. For example, a rainbow placed on top of a smiley face will make the shape of an eye. The letter 'v' makes the shape for a beak and the letter 'm' is the start of a mouth. It is also at this age that kids seem to divide into 2 groups of drawers. Our 'imaginative drawers' let their drawings pour out of their heads, telling their stories as they draw. While our 'reference drawers' interpret the world around them. We know these 2 groups by what we set them to draw. In a class for example, a teacher might ask the class to draw what lives on the moon. An imaginative drawer will take off at a hundred miles an hour. They will draw with ease and confidence and will be able to tell you exactly what line means what in their drawing. However a reference drawer will begin to feel anxious - this is out of their comfort zone and they need something to work from.
Alternatively, if a teacher were to hand out a photograph to work from, the reference drawers will blow you away with how accurate they can interpret what they are seeing and the imaginative drawers will feel 'boxed' and uninspired. Imaginative drawers will 'discover' how to draw, whilst reference drawers will 'see' how to draw. It is during these years that you should never criticise or try to correct kids drawings. We want them to build drawing confidence more then anything else. Confidence makes up the biggest component of learning to draw at this age.
Once kids reach around 9 and up they have the developmental capacity to identify tone - the difference between light and dark. This is what makes a drawing look 3D. They have now been using a pencil for a number of years and can learn how to control the lines as well as the pencil pressure to draw. They are building the maturity to be able to critique their own work and the confidence to make mistakes and recognise a happy accident or readily correct the same mistake, which is the foundation of drawing. When we get new drawers at this stage, we spend the first 3 lessons building drawing confidence in a step by step manner. Once they have done these 1st 3 lessons, they feel like they can draw anything!
For kids class times, head to our Kids Classes page.