9 year old boy

I believe that this boy is in Lowenfeld’s schematic stage (7-9). His objects are less circular and
have a formula to them. Each of his bodies are square and the arms and legs are rectangle shapes.
He is not just using lines to draw them out. His schemas are conceptual because you can see his
microscope is labeled but it is drawn as a line with a circle on top. He organized his space well
and has a ground line the objects are placed on. The space is flat with no perception of
background and with the people and objects lined up across the page. He is not overlapping
much either. When looking from Betty Edwards point of view, I think he is in the landscape
stage (6-8). You can see this by his definite approach to having a line for the ground, that the
people are on and with the germs being small on the same line too, and the sun in the sky. I think
that this boy is a little under where he should be at for the stages. He fits in the schematic age
range, but he is right at the top where you would think his skills would be a little more advanced.
He is also over the landscape age but not even close to being at the stage of complexity.
6 year old girl
I think this picture is in Lowenfeld’s schematic stage (7-9). You can tell that she has concepts of
what people should look like. She knows that everyone has eyelashes but doesn’t depict them
realistically yet because they are very long for the bottom lashes. She does this with the mouth as
well because she adds teeth, but they are only three teeth and they are pointed sharp on the ends.
I don’t think she is in the preschematic stage because the figure isn’t floating randomly. You can
tell she placed it in the center with the body coming up from the bottom of the page. I think for
Betty Edwards she would probably be in the pictures that tell stories (4-6). This is probably a
picture of herself or someone she knows. She will have reasons for why she drew her this way
and why she placed that shirt on her. It doesn’t look detailed enough to be in a higher stage
where there is a definite landscape and not enough attention to more realism. I think this girl is
right where she should be for the stages. She is right in between Lowenfeld and Edwards stages.
At the top of Edwards and the bottom for Lowenfeld.
6 year old boy
This boy is in Lowenfeld’s stage of dawning realism (9-12). You can see how he has a lot of
realism and detail in this piece. He made the tree have rounded edges, the bird has separate parts
and different colors for each. The house has windows, a door, roof, and chimney. He tried to
make the tractor look realistic with the bigger wheel in the back and smaller in the front. Also,
the smoke stack and the fact that it’s pulling a wagon, which has smaller wheels than the tractor.
I don’t think that the piece is large, free, and spontaneous, but smaller and tighter. He made sure
he had room for all the things he wanted in the picture. For Betty Edwards, I think he is in the
landscape stage (6-8). We clearly have the green grass at the bottom and the blue clouds in the
sky with a sun. He also added objects that help us realize us this too. The bird in the sky, the tree,
the house, and vehicle on the ground add to the landscape. He also portrays the smoke coming
out of the tractor going up into the sky. I think that this boy is a little ahead of the stages. He
clearly has been drawing and coloring throughout his life. You can tell he is interested in making
things be a little more elaborate and realistic.
9 year old girl
I think this girl is in Lowenfeld’s stage of dawning realism (9-12). Even though the picture itself
is simple, you can see there was a detailed plan involved. The artist is small and tight versus
large and spontaneous. There was much attention to detail in lining up the grass to each be
almost the same size and right next to each other without overlapping. The flowers are also
planned out by how she spaced them almost equal distance apart. I think she is aware that others
will look at her work so she drew something she knew could be done well in her eyes. For Betty
Edwards, I think she is in the landscape stage (6-8). She clearly has a ground line but more
important it is also at the very bottom of the page. She also made sure that the grass went the
whole length of the paper too, to make it more believable as the ground. I think that this girl fits
in alignment with the stages.
When we look at artwork from an individual, we can get a sense of how their
development is progressing. Just like with reading and writing skills, art skills progress as well.
We could compare artwork that was done a year ago to now to see what has shifted and if it is in
the right direction. This would help for future planning to get a sense of where each individual is
at and plan the curriculum around that. For instance, if most of my students are at the top of the
stages or beyond, I would not want to give them a simple assignment that doesn’t help progress
their skills. I would want to have something that lets their creativity flow and experiment with
different techniques. I could also use this information to scaffold how I introduce a lesson and
what things I could show leading up the assignment to help them advance to the next level.
I could differentiate by giving choices with each assignment. I would want to have a main
idea but then offer ways to simplify the choices or advance the choices. For instance, it could be
a project about nature, or something you like in nature. For the lower learners, I would say they
can just choose one object, like a leaf, and pull up a reference picture to look at. For average
students, I would have them draw two or three things that are related to your favorite thing like a
tree with a squirrel in it and maybe it is an apple tree too. For gifted students, I would challenge
them by asking them to enhance their background of where their favorite thing is as well. Is the
tree in the woods or in a neighborhood and what season is it in?