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Child Art
The Schematic
Stage (7 to 9 years)
By Lois E. Wilson, Senior Scribe
Former Art Education Instructor, Miami
University
After a long search for a way to depict people and environment,
children create their own form concept or schema for these. Their human
schema contains all the knowledge they emotionally connect with the
thought people and this they repeat again and again unless an
intentional experience influences them to change their concept. The age
this occurs varies from child to child.
The child discovers there is a definite order to the way objects are
related to each other in space indicating awareness of the environment.
Children think: I am on the ground; the car is on the ground and
express the feeling of moving along the ground with a space schema, the
base line, upon which they draw people and objects. A sky line may also
appear. This ability to correlate things properly in space and seeing
themselves as part of an environment are indications they are ready to
cooperate socially and ready to learn to read.
The illustration (Picking Flowers for My Room) is a composite showing
characteristics which appear during this stage. Colors are usually used
as children see them; shapes and objects are easily definable. There is
often exaggeration depicting strong feelings about a subject. This is
apparent in the size of the child’s arms. There is a schema for the
flowers and trees. Also shown is a sky line.. A hill is created with a
curved base line, but trees are drawn perpendicular to it as the child
knows they grow. To show picking flowers in the middle of the garden,
the flowers in front are upside down. If this area is folded up, the
child is kneeling among the flowers. The inside of the child’s room is
shown by X-ray from outside the house.Folding over and X-ray depictions
are creative ways children express themselves.
Since it is three-dimensional, modeling in clay stimulates another kind
of thinking. Through its plasticity, it affords children an easier
means of deviating from their concepts. They can bend figures to
fulfill their intentions. Children model in two different ways: some
pull features such as arms and legs out from the whole lump of clay
(analytic method); others will model parts separately and put them
together to form the whole person or object (building-up or synthetic
method). These “pulling out” or “putting together” methods are deeply
rooted in the child’s thinking. Trying to divert the child from
one method to the other would only block their thinking.
As in the other stages of child art, parents should provide
experiences, materials and opportunities for children to express
themselves visually. They should also encourage children to talk about
their work. It is an opportunity to learn what they are
experiencing and to help them become more self-confident.
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