Analyzing Childrens Art

Madeline Small
University of Missouri

Analyzing Childrens Art

Analyzing childrens artwork is a key component in
understanding how children think. The idea is to determine their
developmental level. Teachers can learn a lot about the student by
analyzing their artwork. The way children draw develops in steps. It is
important to understand this because it could give us insight on how
they are progressing in other core areas. In my research I found that
even twins develop at different speeds and in different areas. I
analyzed two childrens drawings that are twins who are four years old,
Madeline and Miles. Though Miles had a more advanced technique,
Madeline included way more details. To determine where these twins
are at developmentally I will analyze each of their drawings and the
conversations I had with them about their drawings in detail. After
analyzing the artwork, I concluded both twins were in the preschematic stage, which is important because it can give insight into
their intelligence. (Mallonee, L., 2014)
Methods
For this research project I interviewed a pair of twins that I
babysit. They are four years old and so very different from each other.
They do attend preschool and have an older brother. Mom and Dad are
together; they make a good amount of money. Dad is a doctor and
Mom is a counselor at Columbia College. They have plenty of
opportunity to color and make crafts.

When I interviewed them I sat them down at the kitchen table

and started recording our conversation. I first asked what they would
want to use to color with. I got out some markers and big sheets of
paper. Next, I explained what we were doing and gave them a guide on
how to start their drawing. I said, You can either draw a picture of
yourself, a picture of your family, or a picture of outside. From there I
let them draw whatever they wanted and if they went off track from
the prompt I did not stop them. I asked questions pertaining to their
artistic decisions. For example, I asked Why did you want to use those
colors?, Why is he frowning?, What are you doing in this picture? I
let them draw as long as the wanted and when they decided they were
finished I had them write their names on them. Then we talked about
what the story was behind their pictures. When we were done
discussing this we cleaned up the markers and put away the paper. I
then asked if it was okay if I took their pictures home with me to which
they responded yes.

Findings
As you can see in the image above the drawings at first glance
look very similar, however as we look closer they are so very different.
The top one, Madelines uses a lot of color and includes much more
detail than the drawing Miles did. They are both in the Preschematic
Stage, which consists roughly of four to seven year olds. This stage is
when they first try to represent objects by how they look in real life. If
we look at Madelines drawing she uses a lot of circles to represent
bodies, heads, eyes, and ears. She has figured out that using straight
lines can represent arms, legs, and mouths. Miles drawing includes
people also but instead of using circles to represent everything he has
moved to using stick figures. He also includes hair on his mom.
When focusing on only the people in the drawing they are very
different. Miles chose to use one color, black, to draw his mom and
brother, while Madeline used several different colors. Madelines
representations are very geometric and she did not fill up the entire
page. There is a lot of background space. Both of them did this. You
can see that they both colored blue to represent the sky and only

colored a very thin line across the top. They do not make the sky and
the ground meet each other because they do not know how to utilize
that space yet. The pre-schematic stage says the sizes of the objects
are not proportional to each other and this is truly represented in their
drawings. The pre-schematic stage also represents geometric shapes
in their artwork and Madeline and Miles are displaying this in all their
artwork Ive seen including this piece. (Compilation, 2015)
They have included body parts like arms and legs but have not
yet discovered drawing hands, feet, fingers, and toes. This will come
the older they get. This comes toward the end of the pre-schematic
stage. They have their people looking directly at the person who is
viewing the drawing. Oddly enough Madeline made her dad frowning.
This is unusual because at this stage the people they draw are almost
always smiling. We see this when we look at Miles drawing. When I
asked Madeline about that she said that her family was on vacation in
a tropical island and her dad was sad that it was so expensive. This
was just one instance of her going into major detail about her artistic
choices. She chose all different colors for the people because it
reminded her of the rainbow and rainbows are beautiful. Children
create art from emotion. For example Madeline used several different
colors which reflects her bright personality. It shows she is outgoing
and enjoys expressing herself. (Farokhi, M., and Hashemi, M., 2011)
She also drew a hotel. It is very geometric using only rectangles and

triangles, but her reasoning behind it is incredible. She said that her
house has an attic so hotels probably also have attics and my attic has
boxes in it so theirs probably does too. Madeline was working thirty
minutes on this drawing and only stopped because her mom came
home so I had to leave. Children create art from emotion. For example
Madeline used
Miles drawing was not that detailed. He does not like to sit still
for very long. He was probably working on his drawing for about ten
minutes. When I asked what his drawing was about he said his mom,
Aiden (his brother), and him were going to a hotel. That was the end of
his explanation. It is interesting because even though Miles drawing is
technically more advanced, Madeline included way more detail and
story behind her drawing. Miles is considered more advanced because
he has stopped using circles to represent every detail of his drawings.
In the Hiedis Horse video the Analysist mentioned how the horses legs
gradually become less like circles and rectangles and more realistic.
(Fein, S., 2010) Even twins develop and perform completely different
when given a specific task.
Conclusion
I know these students really well and know how they are
developing in other areas. I think these results are accurate especially
knowing their personalities. I predict that Madeline will continue to
develop at a normal rate and probably end up surpassing Miles in the

long run. She is so creative and thinks so deeply about her artwork.
Miles has trouble focusing on one thing for very long and can never sit
still. If you get him to look you in the eyes and tell him directions that
are short, sweet, and simple he can usually get it done. He completed
the art assignment with no problem but did it with only fulfilling the
minimum requirements. I can encourage Madeline and Miles to grow in
the classroom through artwork by emphasizing art projects. They are in
preschool so we put a huge emphasis on art projects anyways. They
are very young so they have plenty of time to develop at a normal rate
because the pre-schematic stage is from four to seven years old.
(Compilation, 2015) It is important as a teacher to know their stage
because it can be used to predict their intelligence now and where
they will be in the future. As a teacher if my students are in the preschematic stage I will talk about all the parts of the body and
demonstrate drawing a person including all of the features and have
my students replicate it. This is different than the schematic stage
because by then they would have a better sense of space
representation and use more details.
In my future classroom I will encourage artistic growth by
incorporating art into core subjects. There are several different ways
this can be done. Students would love to have a hands-on assignment
that involves the topic they are already learning about it. In my field
placement I noticed my teacher using this technique. They are working

on certain words and they practice writing them. She has them write
their words in the most creative way they can think of and gives them
multiple types of media to use. The students come up with ways to
transform these words into masterpieces. This creates authentic
learning and gives opportunity to grow. It is important to analyze
childrens drawing because it gives an insight into their mood and
feelings and a way to communicate. (Farokhi, M., and Hashemi, M.,
2011)

References
Mallone, C., L., (2014) Student suggests childrens drawings reveal
how smart they are. HYPERALLERGIC Sensitive to Art & its
Discontents.

Fein, S. (2010) Heidis horse, and childrens first drawings.

Compilation: Unknown Authors, (2015) Ltc 4240 sections 1 & 2: Art
for children. Mizzou Publishing, 48.
Farokhi, M., and Hashemi, M., (2011) The analysis of childrens
drawings: Social, emotional, physical, and psychological aspects.
Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences.