In “Doing Science Making Art,” Bevil Conway references his childhood spent making “figurative representational work.” I assume he primarily means drawing or painting, common forms of art experimentation for children. He describes the hard work and obsessive “observational rendering” he had to repeatedly practice in order to get good at his crafts. He also explains that he does not understand why people think that getting good at art is a mystical process.
In one of my classes last semester, The Psychology of Creativity, we explored the development of children’s art. It turns out that children’s drawing goes through the same developmental milestones, no matter the child’s background and environment. In the Psychology of Creativity, we also looked at how excelling in creative fields (like art and science), requires work, even though there is a certain level of mysticism to creative breakthrough moments.
In this blog post, I will look at the development of children’s art and connect it to how we can understand the scientific creative process.
Children’s art development
1. Scribble. Between the time a child can grip a writing utensil the time they are about three years old, children enter the scribbling stage of drawing. They explore color and lines and practice their fine motor skills. At times, children will point to a scribble and unprompted, explain what their scribble represents. Representational thinking is a notable step in the often literal minded brain of a child.
2. Pre-schematic stage. Between around three and four, children’s drawings become more complex than scribbles, but do not clearly represent objects. Later on in the pre-schematic change, children draw “tadpole” figures to represent people. Tadpole figures are circles with 4 lines that come out. Tadpole figures are seen in the drawings of children all over the world.
3. Schematic change. Between five and eight, children add detail and realism to their work. Colors, instead of being the child’s favorite, are more accurate to represent what they are actually trying to draw. Stories often go along with the drawing children make between 5 and 8.
4. In the preteen stage, it is very common for children to lose their interest in drawing. Around 4th – 6th grade, children often decide that they can’t draw and do not make realistic pictures. There idea of what they want to draw does not match what they do draw and they get frustrated. The children who continue to draw during this “drop out” point, often become artistic adults.
I think the development of children’s art shows a few things about the nature of creativity, science, and art. Science can be used to study artistic processes. In the past, creativity was viewed as a mystical process inspired by “muses,” God, or supernatural forces of some kind. Developmental psychology, and psychology in general, uses the scientific process to shed light on creativity and art. The interconnection between art and science strengthens understanding of both fields.
http://www.earlychildhoodcentral.org/childrens-art/developmental-stages
I think it’s interesting that most children go through the same steps of development, even though artistic expression is usually thought of as something very personal.