Drawing & Brain Development

The beginning of the school year is my absolute favorite time for drawings. It is amazing to see the developmental progress my students have made over the summer and the capabilities of the new ones!

I'm a big believer in the theories of Viktor Lowenfeld and Rhoda Kellogg. The main idea of their work is that the artwork of children is directly linked to brain development. Rhoda Kellogg studied the artwork of thousands of children throughout the world and published several books from the 1950s to 1970s on the correlation between brain development and art. I can't seem to find any that are still in print, but Analyzing Children's Art and The Psychology of Children's Art are both available used on Amazon.

According to Lowenfeld, the developmental stages of drawing are scribbling, preschematic, schematic, realistic, and pseudorealistic. I like this diagram of the developmental stages.

I love to give kindergarten students crayons on the first day of Art class and ask for self portraits. Here are some of my favorites from this year...

Preschematic drawings, i.e. scribbles!

A "tadpole" figure with clothes!

A little more advanced- check out those fingers and ears!

At the end of the year, I plan to have the same kindergarten students create another self portrait so we can really see their progress!