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Paper
DRAWING ANALYSIS
MEGN THORNBURG
Megan Thornburg
Throughout history, art has been a form of expression and way of communication
for everyone. Unlike writing, reading, or math, anyone can create art no matter their
education, experience, or age. Currently, children that attend public schools in the United
States normally have art classes that are on some sort of rotation with music, physical
education, and, in some cases, technology classes. Art is viewed by many students as an
outlet for their creativity. Art creates a time for students to discover new ways to interpret
their interests and feelings and turn blank pages or their ideas into an expression. The
time also allows for children to progress through a series of stages of development
andthere are sets of characteristics that can be identified and are typically found among
large groups of children within broadly defined age-ranges (Luehrman & Unrath, 2006).
These stages allow educators to identify where a child is developmentally and help them
further develop their artistic abilities. There are specific traits that accompany each stage,
and as children exhibit these stages, educators are able to better accurately place what
stage they are in and develop plans to move them into the next stage.
Method
To get a closer look at the artistic decisions used by an elementary aged student, I
interviewed Rose (pseudonym). Rose is a fifth-grade student, who has parents from India.
I was really interested with the influences this background would have on her art, because
she is exposed to multiple cultural factors that make her unique compared to other
classmates. For this assignment, I simply asked Rose to draw me a picture of anything
she wanted to draw. I also asked Rose to talk about her artistic choices out loud so that I
could record her reasoning by writing it down. I wanted to allow Rose plenty of time to
create her drawing, so I made sure we had at least twenty minutes for her to draw. The
materials that I provided for Rose to draw were notebook paper and a large assortment of
colored pencils.
Findings
During the twenty minutes used to draw, Rose created an image that is inspired by
her Indian heritage. Before she started drawing, Rose looked through all the color options
and selected about five or six colored pencils. I asked her why she chose to use only these
few colors and she replied, These are the prettiest colors. From this statement, I gained
insight on Roses first aesthetic choices. There was no reason for Rose to choose the
colors, except that she liked them more than the other colors available showing, In an
age of abundance, appealing only to rational, logical, and functional needs is woefully
insufficientBut if those things are not also pleasing to the eye or compelling to the soul,
few will buy them (Pink, 2006). Through the careful selection of the color scheme, I
better understood Roses aesthetic choices, choices that are individual specific to herself.
As Rose started her drawing, she narrated almost every step. First, Rose started drawing
by saying, Right now, Im drawing a simple teardrop, but big. After she drew her initial
line, she followed up by saying, Make the same shape, a little bit smaller on the inside.
With Rose focusing on the use of lines in her drawing, it shows her use of visualization,
Over time, and with experience, every line that children create adds an extra dimension
to their visual conception of line (Burton, 1980). The detail and time that Rose dedicated
to the lines that she was drawing really emphasize the experience that she has with
creating similar artwork. Rose continued to draw one more outline of the teardrop shape
on the inside of the initial line. While she was drawing these lines, she said that she is,
always trying to make the lines as neat as possible meaning she was trying to draw
them in a way where they would not touch each other or look uneven.
specifically through her cultural influences that she based her drawing. Rose chose to
model her drawing from the henna designs that her mother creates at home.
investigators of early artistic development have shown that the first steps in symbol
making are prompted by the emergence of two important new abilities. The first involves
learning to make connections between ideas about the world. The second involves
creating symbols. Rose demonstrated her connection to ideas about the world through
drawing an adaptation of her mothers henna designs. When I asked Rose about henna,
she told me that when her mother was a student in India, it was a requirement that the
women take henna classes. She continued to demonstrate her understanding of Indian
culture by saying that henna is mainly used for religious purposes or celebrations. From
this conversation and Roses incorporation of cultural influences, I can see that she
about multiple cultures. This is a direct influence on her artistic choices, and this
information about her cultural heritage that she chooses to incorporate into the art that she
creates.
I was surprised when Rose was filling in the outlines of the teardrops with
scales or u shapes, that she filled in the space left between a few of the scales with a
darker color. This color was separate from the initial colors that she chose. I asked Rose
why she decided to fill in the leftover space and why she chose such a contrasting color.
Her response was, it fills up the empty space and gives it a bolder look. Through her
Conclusion
Based from the drawing techniques and reasoning behind Roses creation, I would
place her in-between two stages. The stages are the Dawning Realism stage and the
basing her drawing from a more complex schema, meaning she is using elements of what
she already knows in her artwork, but that artwork is trying to be like her mothers henna.
In order for Rose to completely transition to the Pseudo-Naturalistic stage, I would
recommend that she focuses more on relationships in her drawings and the effects of
different techniques used to produce art. I would encourage Rose to keep creating henna
inspired art, but to try new ideas and incorporate more shapes, even trying different
Gaining the experience of watching a child draw and seeing their current artistic
development so that I can help them further their abilities during the school year.
Drawings and artwork that children produce show teachers the type of connections that
they are making between themselves and the world around them.
References
Boston University.
Burton, J. M. (1980). The first visual symbols. Developing Minds. Boston, MA: Boston
University.
Pink, D. H. (2006). A whole new mind: why right-brainers will rule the future. New York,