Why Is Your Child Drawing Like a Child
When my 5 year old daughter shows me her work (her last masterpiece was a rainbow, which is also a slide), I say this . But here’s what I’m interested in: “What’s going on in this brain?”
This video from Function, produced by Fractal Media, gives me some insight. In a pilot study, researchers compared the way children draw with professional painters using eye tracking technology. Wearing special glasses, children and professionals were asked to recreate the same scene based on the famous painting by Paul Cézanne ” The Card Players” . The researchers then looked at the data to see where the participants’ eyes were looking throughout the process, which could help reveal how artistic skills develop. I found the results quite fascinating for both the parent and the person drawing as a child.
How children and professional artists differed in their approach to drawing:
First glance: When the scene was first shown, professionals scanned the entire image and relationships between elements, while children were limited to individual objects. (For example, when asked what he was going to draw first, one boy replied, “A hat.”
Time spent observing the scene: While you might have assumed that professional artists would look at the scene, take a mental snapshot, and then create their own drawing based on the painting in their head, it was the opposite. Professionals spent twice as much time looking at the scene and analyzing it as children.
Proportions: Professional artists accurately painted the height of the wine bottle, and the children made the bottle an average of 49% higher than it should have been. The professional eyes were constantly looking at the proportional relationship between forms and objects.
Priorities: Since the professionals sketched out the various elements of the scene before spending time on details, their finished work was much more complete. The children drew one element at a time – a person, a hat, a chair – before moving on to the next. Pros put more effort into drawing context than individual objects, while children pay more attention to men’s faces.
While the project is purely for entertainment purposes, it does provide a clear perspective on brain development. Now that your child is drawing your family, you can better understand why your Chihuahua always fits your shoulders. Encourage children to keep making things and watch their art develop.