Stages of Artistic Development Paper – Logan Vermeer

(9-Year-Old Boy’s Drawing)

For this image, I do feel the student is about where they should be with their drawing. They
understand that the people must have their feet on the ground, not floating anywhere. They have
a rough idea on the sizing of body parts and other body parts. Their selection of words and
spelling are accurate. The person in the middle is missing both arms, however I would see this as
the student did not feel comfortable having lines overlap each other too much without the picture
looking messy. This stage the appear to be drawing at would be the Schematic State. I would not
place them into the Stage of Dawning Realism because there isn’t a ton of detail, and the sizing
still isn’t as accurate as I believe it would be in the Stage of Dawning Realism.

(6-Year-Old Girl’s Drawing)

For this drawing, I would that that the student has a higher level of artistic ability or
understanding than most in the Preschematic Stage. In this stage, one would expect to see more
circular scribbles, the arms would just be lines as seen in “stick drawings” and there would be
much less detail. The picture wouldn’t show nostrils, eye lashes, teeth; and the hair would not
show individual strands. This student would be between the Schematic stage and the Stage of
Dawning Realism. The main reason I wouldn’t fully place them in the Stage of Dawning
Realism would be because the student did not demonstrate their ability to draw arms and legs, or
hands and feet with accuracy and detail, so I am not able to see their ability to do so yet.
(6-Year-Old Boy’s Drawing)

In this picture, I would say the student is past the Preschematic Stage and would be recognized as
a student in the Schematic stage. Although the person they drew is still a “stick person”, the rest
of their picture shows detail. The house, other than the addition to the chimney is fairly simple,
however their acknowledgement of the smoke/smog from the train is noted. The student is also
correct in that if the trail was driving towards the left, the smoke would billow and go behind the
trail, so they understand the sense of movement and how to represent this in a picture. As far as
the orange dots on the page, I see a student who is trying to add light and a cheery mood to the
picture rather than just having a
blank white space between objects.

(9-Year-Old Girl’s Drawing)

This picture is hard to guess where they are because of the lack of objects to base it off of. I do
notice that the child understands the individuality of blades of grass, however they chose to use
the color orange to represent everything. This child, based on their age would be in the
Schematic Stage or closer to the Stage od Dawning Realism, however I would place them in the
Preschematic stage. Again, they might be in the Schematic stage, it is just hard to know based off
of the presented drawing. They added the detail of the flower pedals and leaves, however the
flower pedal(s) is just one big, connected pedal and not individual pedals like how the grass is
shown.
Reflection:
I find this article and information very useful and interesting. I love learning about child
development and how it can be used to track students’ progress, as well as identify possible
struggle areas and even certain disabilities or disorders. By understanding where (roughly)
students drawing abilities should be, we can see that. When students draw, paint, or do anything
where they are doing something that you can see/watch, it doesn’t only show us what they are
capable of, but how they see things. A student that always colors things in bright colors or where
the people are always smiling, probably has a positive outlook on things. A student that colors
everything in darker colors, black, grey, navy, could be anything from sad, to color blind! Again,
that is not to put students into boxes, but it gives the viewer a relative idea on where that student
is at emotionally and not just what they are physically capable of.
I thought reading about “Haptic” and “Visual” types of people or artists was interesting. I
would definitely say that I am more in the haptic category as I spend more time making my art
showcase a feeling rather than a detailed picture of something. Partially because I do not think I
am not skilled enough for getting all of the details accurately but mainly because I always spend
my time focused on the feeling of the painting/drawing. I also use colors in this way. For
example, if I was painting a winter setting, if I wanted it to feel like a gloomy day, I would use
more greys and blacks or purple and blue rather than creating a nice light blue sky. I would add
in clouds that are moving and objects that are blowing in the wind or something like that to
create the mood or feeling I want the viewer to feel. I will be watching students more closely to
see how they draw and paint and ask them questions to see if I can get a better idea on how they
create and see art.