Child Artistic Development: From Scribbles to Realism

Posted on Mar 2, 2026 in Pedagogy

The Scribbling Stage: Early Artistic Expression

Scribbling

Scribbles are the first shapes of child art. They appear when a child holds a marking instrument and moves it with muscular variations of the hand or the arm. Before scribbling, children have done similar movements playing with their fingers in sand or any other surface (e.g., spilled milk on a table). In this sense, a scribble is a mark or a trace.

There is an increasing interest in research on the scribbling stage, which is considered a crucial stage in artistic development.

Scribbling Stage (1.5–3 Years)

  • In the very initial stage, there is no interest in representing the visual world; markings are simply records of enjoyable kinesthetic activity. The movement is more important than the image. The child is not very interested in the result.
  • Two-year-old children recognize the correspondence between certain gestures and their particular traces. Progress in the initial stage of drawing takes place through experimentation and repetition of actions, which combine alternately.
  • Early marks are sometimes accompanied by babbling. Recent research has shown that initial phases of drawing development integrate different symbolic systems (graphic, verbal, and kinetic).
  • In the scribbling stage, children are developing a complete vocabulary of shapes: dots, lines, and circles, that will lead them to create more complex drawings later (Kellogg).
  • Three-year-old children begin to name scribbles, which is an important milestone in development. This is part of the beginning of symbolic thinking and also an answer to an adult’s repeated question: “What are you drawing?”

Matthews’ Four Functions of Scribbles

According to Matthews (2002), scribbles are used for at least these four things:

  1. To investigate and to experiment with visual and graphic relationships.
  2. To represent simple visual features of objects, such as roundness or verticality (even in 2-year-old children).
  3. To represent movements and actions (for instance, the movement of a washing machine or a plane).
  4. To express emotions.

The Schematic Stage: Developing Visual Language

Schematic

Scribbles evolve simultaneously with a child’s thinking and motor skills. At the age of three, normally, children arrive at a “schema.” These are the earliest recognizable shapes and are composed using the graphic language developed with scribbles. The child becomes aware of his new capacity to represent the world through drawing. Many authors call the transition between the scribbling and schematic stage the pre-schematic stage.

The human figure is one of the first topics to be drawn by young children. First human shapes drawn with circles and simple lines are called “tadpole figures.”

Schematic Stage (3–7 Years)

With increasing age, the child adds more details to his figures. Simultaneously, animals, houses, suns, cars, etc., start to appear in the drawings. These schemas are constantly being revised by copying and incorporating cultural schemas.

Characteristics of the Schematic Stage

The schematic stage shows some principles or characteristics that we could interpret as “the way children draw” from 4 to 8 years:

  • Children create schemas by the addition of simple geometric shapes.
  • Children always draw following a sequence: normally the same for every schema, which means that the drawing starts and ends following the same steps.
  • Children use the same shape or graphic unit to represent different objects: the circle is used to represent the head, the body, or the feet; the same human figure stands for every member of the family, etc.
  • Size of objects is related to emotions and also to the importance that these objects have for the child.
  • Children are conservative: they have the tendency to draw their schemas without changes for a long period of time (as far as we can talk about a long period of time in children!).
  • They have their own particular means of showing spatial relationships in drawings:
    • The ground is represented by a base line.
    • Objects are drawn, normally, perpendicularly to the base line.
    • Drawings can show, simultaneously, different points of view.
    • Objects cannot “overlap”; each object must have its own space around it.
    • To show what there is “inside” an object, they create “X-ray” drawings.

The Visual Realism Stage: Seeking Accuracy

Visual Realism Stage (8–11 Years)

  • The realistic appearance of the drawing becomes more important for the child.
  • Characteristics of the schematic stage are abandoned, and new features appear: perspective, the ground represented with planes instead of the baseline, overlapping, movement, etc.
  • Attempts to adopt and follow social conventions (e.g., what can be considered a “good” or “bad” drawing or how a particular object should be drawn).
  • Children become more critical of their drawing. This is the first time the child becomes aware of a lack of ability to show objects the way they appear in the surrounding environment. Because of this awareness, drawings often appear less spontaneous than in previous stages.

Embracing Diversity in Children’s Drawing

It is important to realize that we will find a wide diversity of ways of drawing among children. In fact, in recent years, there has been a critical review of the idea of developmental stages. We could summarize these critical ideas with this: stage theories, characterized by linearity, do not account for diversity in drawing, above all beyond early childhood years.

Although children go through all four stages, they will do it on differing time scales. SEN (Special Educational Needs) students can stay longer in the scribbling or pre-schematic stage. Some of them might never reach the visual realism stage.

On the other hand, we can observe this diversity in several ways:

  • Some children show much more interest and skill for drawing than others.
  • Some children are more visual, others are more emotional and kinesthetic, while others prefer to use drawing to tell stories.

Therefore, visual realism should not be considered as the only aim of drawing development. We have to be aware of these different ways of expression and that drawing can be used with different styles and aims.

Educational Implications for Schools

  1. Drawing must be fostered in schools as a very valuable activity which encompasses learning and enjoyment.
  2. All children should have opportunities for drawing in different sizes, surfaces, materials, and tools. Topics should also be diverse and engaging.
  3. Infant education is a very important period to enhance drawing as a familiar and enjoyable activity for children and to engage them in creative tasks.
  4. Primary education seems to be a crucial time for drawing, since it is from ages 7 to 11 when children need more support for solving drawing problems.
  5. We should combine observational, expressive, and creative drawing in order to provide children with different ways of expression.