Children's drawing how to analyze the drawings

Children's drawing has not been a field too studied, especially in a society where the most practical and industrial aspects are given more importance. Today, thanks to research in psychology, we know that all children want to draw, and that they do it naturally In any context and in all places of the world, so it constitutes one of the most cross -cultural aspects of universal presence.

Thanks to Kellogg's investigations, we also know that infants They must not be interrupted in their drawing process (Méndez, 2007). We do not have to teach them to draw, because they already know. You have to leave space for them to do so, allow them to express themselves freely and, In no way, criticize or evaluate their results.

Content

• Structure and theme of children's drawing
• Stages of Children's Drawing
  • 1. Garabatos stage
  • 2. Preschematics stage
  • 3. Schematic stage
  • 4. Realistic stage
• How to analyze children's drawings
  • Bibliographic references

Structure and theme of children's drawing

In H's work. Luquet we find the most important references in the study of children's drawing (Martín, 2002). This author said that children's drawing includes a structural elements analysis, being two aspects that must be studied: The type and internal model.

He guy It refers to the representation that a specific child performs on a specific object, showing its stability characteristics (Méndez, 2007). The formal continuities that children choose for their drawings are called conservation of the type, and suppose the tendency to reproduce the drawings of the same reason in the same way. The form presented by the First drawing It tends to be repeated, that is, the child will oppose any modification suggestion.

"The type corresponds to a existing psychic reality in your spirit And which we will call Internal model”(Luquet, 1927). For Luquet, the type is a representation of an external object but, in reality, it is what calls a refraction of the object through the soul of the child, an elaboration that is highly complex despite its spontaneity, which is clearly distinguished from the object it intends to represent. The exterior model is only a mere suggestion, it is the internal model that is actually being drawn.

Stages of Children's Drawing

As children change, Change your creative expression (Méndez, 2007). Although they draw quite predictably through different stages of development, it is not so easy to point out precision where the end of one stage is and the beginning of another. This happens because development is continuous and, as always happens in human development, it is not exactly the same for everyone. The stages of children's drawing, theorized by Burt (1927), are the following:

1. Garabatos stage

Start with him First scribble or expression of lines or movements on paper towards 18 months age, ending around 4 years. This first stroke will take the human being made through the drawing, but also made the domain of the written word. All children try to make scribbles, on any surface that is presented to them: sand, water vapor in the window, in the earth, in the air ... and all of them show a certain evolution already in these first strokes.

In addition, says Kellogg, Children's scribbles make sense, They are not purely engines, but they have a structure defined from the beginning. The meaning of young children's drawings is found in the own drawing that they perform, their functionality corresponds to the way in which others are generated on some drawings and, thus, in the form of balance and rebalancing, naturally guided by some organic or aesthetic principle In different ways evolved in strokes and dispositions.

The boy Draw what "comes out", But what is leaving is creating a structure that allows you to draw the following from the above, as if the child art and the child were uploading a staircase programmed by nature and the human disposition to draw in a certain way (Méndez , 2007).

2. Preschematics stage

Of the four at seven years old The first ones arise representation attempts, At this stage called preschematics. Surely, the most striking of this stage is the existence of a Conscious creation of form. It is important the effort that the child performs voluntarily and consciously to connect the world he wants to represent, which is important for his life.

Begin to draw objects from your world with those who have had contact or his imagination, with a representative purpose, all this Without order, with little relationship and with sizes related to its importance, not to the reality of the object. The figures appear all four, to five people, houses, trees, and at six we already observed figures that are perfectly distinguished and defined themes.

3. Schematic stage

At this stage of children's drawing, a concept of more defined characteristics, thus repeating the representative schemes (type of Luquet). Objects are distributed in space by relating to each other, and the sky and the ground appear as characteristics in broad strokes of this stage. The child becomes a concept of man and his environment, This being the scheme or the schemes that appear invariably repeated to represent the world and the images in which they live. This happens around 7 years.

Therefore, when children They alter their scheme or modify it to express their experiences, We know that it is representing some importance for them. The scheme represents the active knowledge of an object, the change and temporal modification of its experience and its cognitive and emotional modifications regarding that object.

4. Realistic stage

In the stage of realism of children's drawing, the need to make a Faithful transfer of reality that you want to draw. The profusion of details and the order in the drawing also appears. There is already the need to explain, the own drawing must express itself, Concern begins with the most formal aspects of drawing, perspective, proportions, proximity to figurative or depth.

How to analyze children's drawings

Through child drawing, we must get to understand the child, In their general processes and also in their subjectivity (Jiménez-Yañez and Chávez, 2008). Observing the drawing we will get to know its cognitive aspects: attention, perception, thought; Of the emotional and personality aspects, and of the entire psychosocial world that is moving to their drawings, that is, all the psychological areas committed in their execution.

What we have to look at in children's drawing are several aspects of the drawing itself:

• Figures: They are large or small, they occupy all the space or there are large blank spaces among them. Which represent? How do they represent it? Are they linked among them or dispersed without continuity? They have some striking characteristic or there is something striking that denies the figurative logic, such as incoherent proportions, or strangely defined spaces. Are there any or several of the figures that are central or to call attention? Are there any that are marked with some special color, or with any sign that means it? If we have different works we must also observe the type and their variations.
• Situation in space: What area of ​​the sheet occupy the drawings, there is preference for some space, they are small or large figures with respect to the most external genes. They go up, or rather accumulate at the base of the sheet. If, for example, he draws his big father in the center and his mother in a corner, we can see the importance they have for her each of her parents.
• CONTENTS: What is trying to represent? What are the most striking elements? What expresses the drawing? What wants to express? What is the story that we can imagine when we see it? How is the one that the child tells us? (To do this it is useful to tell you to tell a story about that drawing). It is important to start What the child says that drawing represents.
• Streak: It is a strong or weak stroke, marked or dim, it impresses as sure, or is rather hesitant, it is continuous or easily broken, it is reviewed several times, or it is barely defined. It is undulating or rather straight and cutting.
• Colors: What are the colors that prevail? What is the use of color in drawing? Are they correctly or apparently randomly? Do they produce a relaxing or uneasy sensation.? If we see that a person is colored with less desire we know that this person may cause problems in the infant's life.
• General impression: What is the general impression, defined from an adjective, which causes you this drawing. You think that others would cause the same impression, or you think that it is rather only to you. Here are the general conclusions about the infant's drawing.

HTP test, what is, what is your purpose and keys to interpret it

Bibliographic references

• Burkitt, e. (2004). Drawing conclusions from Children's Art. Psychologist-leicester, 17, 566-569.
• Jiménez-Yañez, c., Chávez, r. M., & Soto, and. M. (2008). The society of the future: a look through children's drawing. Communication Perspectives, 1(2), 7-16.
• Martina. S. (2002). Theories about child art: a look at GH Luquet's work. Art, individual and society, 1, 173-186. https: // core.AC.UK/Download/PDF/38827758.PDF
• Méndez, p. Q. (2007). Graphic stages of children's drawing, between constructivism and environmentalism. Salamanca Papers of Education, 9, 255-281.
• Luquet, g. H. (1927). Le desin enfantin. Bibliothèque de Psychologie de l "Enfant et de Pédagogie. https: // psycnet.APA.Org/Record/1927-02691-000
• Quirós Montero, R. (2016). Children's drawing and color as means to determine the mood, in a group of children of the transition level of the Juan Chaves Rojas School. UNED repository. http: // repository.UNED.AC.CR/HANDLE/120809/1538