Laura Johnson

Stages of Artistic Development Analysis

Henry, 3
This drawing lands in the middle of Lowenfeld’s Scribbling Stage. He has clearly moved on from
the random scribbles to drawing horizontal and vertical scribbles as well as some longer lines
along the bottom that are drawn individually and intentionally. But he has not yet started
drawing circular scribbles or shapes.
Edwards’ Scribble Stage describes the drawing a bit better. Some of the lines are starting to take
on definitive form even before he’s started to draw circular scribbles or shapes.
Kaiser, 5
This drawing is a little bit harder for me to place, especially since I don’t know what the bug/
monster shape is. I would place this drawing later in Lowenfeld’s Pre-schematic Stage mainly
because of the figure on the right. The figure is almost a cross between a potato person and a
stick figure. The torso and arms are depicted using a circle with sticks coming out of it, but he
goes further by drawing the legs and head separately and adding the detail of the hair. The
objects are floating somewhat randomly but there seems to be a ground line that he is just not
yet concerned with drawing in.
This drawing also fits into Edwards’ Pictures that Tell Stories Stage. The shape on the left clearly
represents something that is likely meant to be interacting with the figure on the right, but he
isn’t concerned yet with composition or balance.
There is also evidence of a tiny bit of self-criticism in this drawing, He started by drawing the
legs to the left of the figure and decided that he messed up and he restarted drawing the figure.
Boy, 6
This drawing fits into Lowenfeld’s Schematic stage. The student doesn’t seem to worry too
much about proportion yet, the tractor and the house are fairly proportional, but the bird is
almost as big as the house. There is no overlapping. The drawing is large and fills up the full
space.
This drawing falls clearly under Edwards’ Landscape stage. He drew a green line to represent
the ground, blue clouds to represent the sky, and filled all the space in between with symbols to
represent objects. The composition is very balanced, there are no large empty spaces.
Macy, 6
This is the first drawing I have that does not fit into the corresponding age range for the stage. I
would place this drawing as transitioning between Lowenfeld’s Schematic Stage and the Stage
of Dawning Realism. The drawing is relatively simple with smiley faces that I would consider
Schematic. We are starting to see a tiny bit of intentional overlapping (the speech bubble over
the hair) that would be characteristic of the Dawning Realism stage as well as very specific
details like the leggings on Kristi as opposed to the wide leg pants on Macy. She also defines the
difference in hair shape and the glasses on Kristi’s head. She is also very self-critical when she
talks about her drawings, and she hides the hands in the drawing because she thinks she can’t
draw hands well enough.
I would place this drawing in Edwards’ stage of complexity simply because of the details I
mentioned above (especially the different outfits) and her concern with wanting others to think
it is “good” or “impressive.”

How this information could be beneficial in the classroom:

These stages of artistic development help act as measuring tapes which can help us spot
progress and lean into it. For example, since Macy is just starting to overlap objects, we could
give her more goals and projects that involve proportion and implied space. It is also a helpful
tool for assessing whether a student may need differentiation if they aren’t yet into the stage
that the rest of the class might be in then a perspective-based project might be discouraging for
them.
These stages can also function as a jumping off point to plan lessons based on the stage the kids
will most likely fit into and then differentiate or change the lesson plans once the teacher gets
to know the students’ abilities and stages better.