Complete Idiot''''s Guide to Drawing- P33 pot

Chapter 23
Just for Children
In This Chapter
➤ Kids can draw, too
➤ It’s all in the attitude
➤ Basic drawing materials for kids
➤ Exercises to get kids drawing
The study of composition means an art education for the entire people, for every child can be
taught to compose—what it is to know and feel beauty and to produce it in simple ways.
—Arthur Wesley Dow
From earliest man’s drawings on cave walls, to the great Renaissance drawings of da Vinci and
onwards, to the works of our contemporaries, drawing is a basic human expression. With
today’s power-based, language-driven, analytical attitude toward education, though, drawing
no longer has a place of real importance (generally speaking).
Children are taught the importance of academic achievement, but visual skills are usually
thought of as pastimes or hobbies. This means that children draw until they are educated out
of their innocent sense of wonder and the ability to just “do” without being caught up in
“correctness” and passing judgment on their work. They then abandon drawing altogether.
You, however, can change this: Use what you have learned about drawing and try being a
child’s guide. Get in touch with your child, grandchild, or a young friend and open up to the
world of seeing and drawing, together.
From Symbols to Realism
Young children are confronted with a world of things to see, learn, name, and understand, to
say nothing of concepts, ideas, and feelings. They start by drawing stick figures to communi-
cate ideas to themselves and others, and as they draw these “crude” pictures, they are con-
necting words to their mind pictures. As you’ll recall from Chapter 1, “The Pleasures of Seeing
and Drawing,” drawing itself is nonverbal, but it helps children develop ideas and language.
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Young children continue to draw their ideas in symbols while at the same time they learn
to see and draw objects as well. And, as their visual perception skills develop, they also
learn to concentrate, become more patient, and increase their problem-solving ability.
Older children have already given up symbolic drawing and want to draw realistically, and
they are frustrated if they can’t. By the time a child is in second grade, in fact, the left-brain
world of editorial judgment is firmly in place, and that joy of uncensored creativity is gone.
Stick figures aren’t just for kids. These were drawn by some of Lauren’s friends.
Educating the Right Side
We teach the “do as I say” method of imparting knowledge, and then we test to establish
capability, skill, and intelligence in just that one way, never acknowledging that there are
many kinds of intelligence and many ways of working. The truth is that education
is learn-
ing, but it’s a left-brained, verbally based, language-driven attitude toward learning.
To teach art and drawing to children—or to learn along with them—helps them learn early
on to access the relational right and avoid the crunch when they are frustrated that makes
them quit. Using a right-brained approach, children can learn visual (and life) skills to last
them into adulthood:
➤ Spatial organization
➤ Attention to detail
➤ Patience
➤ Kindness
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In addition, drawing has an advantage as a learning activity. Because it is seen as a pleasura-
ble activity rather than an academic one, it’s not thought of as stressful. At the same time,
because it’s often an ungraded subject, or at least not viewed as stringently as more academ-
ic ones, it’s relatively free of the anxiety and fear of failure that come with other subjects.

From Hunter to High Tech
Long, long ago, we were more connected—to the land, to our fam-
ilies, to the way we gathered and grew food, to the animals that
provided food, clothing, and shelter, and to the expression of our-
selves through drawing. In short, the hunter-gatherer’s way of life
relied on basic skills, interdependence, and cooperation.
As we settled into the lives of farmers and craftspeople, these basic
skills were still important. At the same time, the added activities
of exploration and the settling of new lands required “multi-
tasking,” but also included a growing dependence on domination
and superiority.
Today, the hard work and basic life skills required of the agrarian
age have been supplanted by the academic learning and analytical
knowledge valued in this industrial and post-industrial age. And,
when we look forward into the technological age of the twenty-
first century, it’s clear that all kinds of creative, visionary skills will
be necessary for full development.
Visual Learning for All Reasons
Visual learning is a great tool: If you draw something you know it, and to know it, you draw
it. As Frederick Frank puts it, “I have learned that what I have not drawn, I have never really
seen …. ” Children across the learning spectrum can benefit from learning to draw in a vari-
ety of ways:
➤ Drawing can help where skills have been or are compromised because of various chal-
lenges. Those with only average academic skills, for example, can have well above-
average skills in visual areas, and even enjoy careers as visual artists, artisans, and
craftsmen. Research has shown that learning disabilities are often problems in the
processing of language-based information, and learning-disabled people often have
very strong visual skills.
➤ Whatever a child’s skills, new levels of competence and a sense of reward can be at-
tained with effort and patience. Then, with the confidence gained from the new learn-

ing and activities, potential career options increase as well. Children who draw no
longer view their sense of self as narrow or traditional.
➤ Drawing promotes new energy and confidence in any endeavor, adding important rea-
soning skills to the battery of left-brain thinking. Drawing a difficult subject can speed
the rate of learning the information—and extend the retention time, too.
➤ In the electronic arena, the creative relational mind is a plus; the ability to see the big
picture and look at it from another angle and continue to see it anew is a gift.
Human expression has a value all its own. To be able to express feeling and thoughts visu-
ally is to encourage one to feel and express those feelings—and a step along the way to
greater understanding amongst us all.
Back to the Drawing Board
School curricula generally under-
value art in favor of left-brained
learning. Drawing can help chil-
dren organize and develop se-
quential thought patterns and
step-by-step habits. New York
State Art Teacher Assessment
Supervisor Roger Hyndman has
done statistical studies on students
with drawing backgrounds—they
achieve higher academic ratings.
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We All Love to Draw
In a nonthreatening environment, we all love to draw. That’s because the hidden child
comes out to play. But traditional instruction in drawing was for older children, usually
those who drew well, and was focused on traditional European styles and models. It didn’t

leave much room for fun.
Today, those of us who help children draw know that they can learn to draw realistically
in a creative environment without sacrificing their natural creativity. With older children
particularly, the experience can keep them from hitting the wall of frustration when they
can’t draw to their expectations and quit. The key is that nonthreatening environment—
and permission to play.
Drawing can be fun—just look at these, with the theme: Springtime and Easter.
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Kids Draw at Any Age
Children need help with drawing realistically before they stop, as they naturally will, the
symbolic stick-type drawings they made when younger to describe their world. And teen-
agers will resist because their language-based left brains have taken over and told them they
can’t draw.
When you’re drawing with a group of children, you’ll need to be aware of these differences.
If there is a range of skill and age in a group, go for the average. The slower ones will catch
up and the more advanced will experiment.
The Very Young
Start drawing with kids when they’re young; you can give the gift of visual experience to a
very young child and likely affect the child’s visual abilities, encouraging his or her ability
to be visually inclined and gifted. One possible activity is to play games with basic shapes.
Recognition and duplication of those circles, squares, and triangles is good for visual per-
ception and for developing the motor skills and coordination needed for drawing.
The Art of Drawing
By determining the child’s particular interests, you can help encourage a child to draw. Many
children, for example, love nature and draw wonderful botanical or biological studies. Others
love and draw detailed maps, learning the geography as they go. Mechanically minded children
might draw parts of things to show how something works—even if that something is a made-up

spaceship or rocket. Whatever interests them, they are learning about drawing and learning to
follow their interests, a great gift.
Stages from Symbol to Image
Time spent with a child is the best way to know just where he or she falls in the stages of
visual development, and, as with all other development, a child may advance beyond and
retreat back. The following guidelines will help you determine where best to apply your
energies:
➤ At ages three to four years, you can work with basic shapes, but children in this age
group will mostly draw symbolically in stick figures.
➤ By the time children are five to six years old, they can begin to draw realistically from
simple shapes, but they will also continue to draw symbolically.
➤ Children who are seven to eight years old can draw realistically, but they may revert
to symbolic drawings for fun. Let them!
➤ Adolescents from eight to thirteen years old have abandoned symbolic drawing and
are eager to draw realistically. They compare and criticize and can easily become
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frustrated and give up if they feel they cannot perform. It’s especially important to re-
mind this age group that drawing is fun, not competitive.
Children’s drawings can reveal their interests and should be encouraged.
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Tactics
There are a number of steps you can take to make drawing a positive experience for chil-
dren.
1. Set up a friendly and supportive world.

2. Talk as an adult, kindly and supportively, but not condescendingly. Kids treated thusly
will act more maturely.
3. Talk nonjudgmentally. Avoid performance words, competition or comparison words,
and definitely fear or failure words. Eliminate
good, bad, better, best, right, wrong, easy,
hard, mistake,
and cheat from your vocabulary.
4. Follow their lead on subjects to draw, at least some of the time, or try making a deal to
follow a suggestion for part of the time and work on a chosen project for the rest of
the time.
The Art of Drawing
Children have the imagination that most of us have lost, thanks to education and the demands
of adult life. Encourage a child to use stories as the impetus for their drawing, or let a child de-
velop a story to go with a picture or a picture to go with a story. Your child’s imagination may
get a boost in the bargain. Use your computer, or take a lesson from your young friend—kids
know more—and combine a story with a picture, illustrate a poem, or start a book project.
Materials for Kids
The next step in encouraging kids to draw is to stock up on
whatever you don’t already have:
➤ Markers, fine and broad-tipped, in lots of colors
➤ Dry-erase markers for drawing on plastic
➤ Mechanical pencils, with a thicker lead
(0.7) in a few hardnesses
➤ Colored pencils, as big a set of colors as possible
➤ Erasers, an assortment; tape, scissors, clips
➤ Paper—inexpensive, and lots of it
➤ Boards, plywood to work on
➤ Water-based paint, watercolor or acrylic, depending
on the child’s age
➤ India ink and pen or brush; water-soluble crayons

Back to the Drawing Board
Be sure to supervise kids—
especially very young ones—in
the use of art materials. Keep
toxic materials or dangerous tools
away from children who are too
young or who are not mature
enough to handle them.
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Reference Materials
Accumulate a file of pictures to reference and ideas for pictures or backgrounds. Your young
friends can add to the pile, too. They will come up with uses and applications for pieces of
graphics that will amaze you. Pictures, postcards, cards, graphics, books and magazines, and
wrapping paper are a beginning. Soon, the kids will be bringing in materials you hadn’t
even thought of.
And then there is the world of objects. Try to set aside a shelf for things to draw. The sky is
the limit here. Be playful and inventive, surprising even. Flowers and fruit (dried or fresh or
fake), shells, skulls, bones, butterflies, plastic animals with good scale and detail, toy cars,
old toys, old blocks and log cabin sets, kitchen utensils and bowls, dollhouse furniture,
dolls, broken toys, fishing tackle, sports equipment, action figures, musical instruments, a
typewriter (if you still have one), roller skates, and tools—all these merely begin a list that
has no end.
Drawing objects are limited by only the imagination, as one of Lauren’s stu-
dents illustrates in these two drawings.
Retraining the Critic
Restrain and retrain the critic in your head (yup—it’s Old Lefty again).
Get rid of him and invite in your kinder right side as a guide instead.

We don’t need nasty critics; there is no right or wrong, and no one
way.
See the Basics
Getting back to basics is the best approach for drawing with kids.
Create a peaceful and encouraging environment, with no judgmental
words like
mistake, no competitive words like good, bad, better, or best.
With younger children, see the basic shapes—the circles, triangles, and
squares in anything—and draw them as the beginning. With older
children, try to see the three-dimensional geometric shapes in things—
spheres, cubes, funnels, eggs, and tubes—and use them as building
blocks toward more complicated things.
Back to the Drawing Board
You don’t need to feel guilty
about getting help or using help.
And don’t worry about copying—
actually, you can learn a lot by
copying, and your art will still be
different because you are different.
Just don’t try to pass off that great
Rembrandt knock-off as your own.
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Banish that critic—it’s just Old Lefty, rearing his ugly head.
Eventually, the process of seeing and
drawing becomes second nature.
Pick Simple Terms to Explain Things
Children might not understand all the terms that we assume they understand, so it’s im-

portant to use simple language until you are sure of your explanations. For example,
➤ A line or shape that is
➤ horizontal is lying down.