FOR YOUNG CHILDREN
I don’t believe that we have to teach young children how to draw things. Instead, we can play a game together! We can guide them and help them to slow down and really look at something. Observational drawings are a great way to improve our drawing skills. When you try to convert a 3D object into a 2D drawing you practise drawing shapes, getting the proportions right, learn how to show depths with shading and also experiment with different techniques. (Children tend to focus on overall shapes and colours at the beginning. As they grow older, they start focusing more on details, proportions and shading)
Observational drawing is drawing what you see. Nothing more, nothing less. It can be anything, from a flower to a bug. The important thing is that we stop and really ‘see’ how things actually look. When we want to draw something, we tend to look more carefully and notice shapes, patterns and small details.
What to do:
Set up your drawing station and put in front of you what you want to draw. If your child is hesitant, you can help him / her by asking questions. Let’s say you want to draw an apple, you could say:
What shape is that apple similar to? Let’s draw a circle!
How big are you drawing that circle?
Let’s look at the outside of the apple closely! What do you see? What colour is it?
Can you notice any details?
If you are drawing something more complicated than an apple, like a face you could help your
child like this:
Let’s start with the biggest part of the head! What is it?
What shape is the head? Where are you going to draw your oval shape?
What is the next part of the face that you would like to draw?
What shape are the eyes? Where are you going to draw them on the face?
How can you draw the nose? What shape is it similar to?
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