10.4: Supporting the Visual Arts

Preschool children often have a natural fascination with the process of creating visual art. Making marks, squishing clay, and using a brush to apply color are activities that attract most young children. In groups where children speak multiple languages and may not share common words, visual art can create connections and a way of communicating. Art can become a way for people to connect across cultures to their common humanity; an appreciation for it may begin in preschool. Inviting caregivers into the environment to share works of art from the home is an opportunity to build a bridge to the home.

Young children are naturally creative. The visual art framework is designed to encourage creativity; open-ended projects emphasize the process of working with visual materials. In other words, the curriculum is not focused on encouraging a child to produce, for example, a specific painting, but rather to practice using a brush on paper without a set outcome.

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Figure 10.8: This child is painting at the easel.[1]

Children are both consumers and creators of visual arts, which is reflected in the foundations:

Visual Art

  • Observe and Learn to Comprehend: Identify art in daily surroundings.

Indicators

Children may….

Examples

Children may….
  1. Select images in materials such as, but not limited to, books, cartoons, computer games, and environmental print.
  2. Use age-appropriate communication to describe works of art.
  3. Recognize the basic language of art and design in daily surroundings.
  1. Move with a variety of colored scarves, noticing how color and shape are changed by the light and movement.
  2. Bring attention to patterns, shapes, lines, or colors found in objects and design inside as well as in nature and the outdoor environment.
  3. Comment or draw attention to a feature of a food item or packaging at snack or meal time.
  4. Ask a question about a work of art.
  5. Notice and discuss the illustrations in picture books as inspiration for making original art.
  6. Help decide which of their artworks should be displayed.
  7. Point out images of personal preference found in everyday life and connect to stories about their life.
  • Envision and Critique to Reflect: Evaluate the effectiveness of what is made during the creative process

Indicators

Children may….

Examples

Children may….
  1. Explain that works of art communicate ideas and tell stories.
  2. Communicate a story about a work of art.
  3. Discuss one’s artistic creations and those of others.
  1. Tell the story of their work.
  2. Show or tell the steps used in making their art.
  3. Use the illustrations of books as inspiration to create their own story.
  • Invent and Discover to Create: Use different skills to generate works of art for functional, expressive, conceptual, and social/cultural purposes.

Indicators

Children may….

Examples

Children may….
  1. Explore the process of creating works of art at one’s own pace.
  2. Use art materials freely, safely, and in specific environments.
  3. Engage in the process of creating visual narratives from familiar stories and subject matter
  1. Use a combination of materials in an inventive way.
  2. Try a variety of techniques.
  3. Talk about the subject of personal artwork.
  4. After several readings of a favorite story, participate in a process that represents the story.
  5. Learn by discovery, such as by finding out what happens when colors are mixed rather than being told ahead of time.
  6. Make choices about their artwork and envision what might happen if they make changes or additions to a work of art.
  • Relate and Connect to Transfer: Make new connections to their own environments, cultures, and stories through the process of making art.

Indicators

Children may….

Examples

Children may….
  1. Explain what an artist does and who an artist can be.
  2. Identify some of the activities in which artists participate.
  3. Identify the art materials used by artists.
  1. Make decisions about, request, and use names for art materials such as pastels, clay, yarn, etc.

(Colorado Department of Human Services. (2021, October 26). Off to a great start. Colorado Early Learning & Development Guidelines. Retrieved August 19, 2022, from https://earlylearningco.org/)

Developmental Sequence of Drawing

When provided with the right tools and a supportive environment, children between the ages of three and five show remarkable growth in the visual arts—progressing more rapidly during this period than at any other time before adulthood. Creativity and imagination peak around age four-and-a-half, a fact well known to experienced preschool teachers. The arts serve as a natural outlet for a preschooler’s creative thinking, and learning in this domain happens swiftly.

Of all the visual arts, children’s drawing ability is the most widely documented. When given the opportunity to make marks, children typically begin with vertical lines, then progress to mandalas—repetitive circular shapes. These evolve into figures with arms and legs, then faces, and eventually more detailed features such as hair, fingers, and eyes. Harvard University professor Howard Gardner famously called this stage “the birth of the potato person.”

This developmental trajectory is so reliable that pediatricians often assess cognitive progress at four- and five-year checkups by asking about the level of detail in a child’s human-figure drawings, rather than focusing solely on letters or numbers. Because children develop language and writing skills at varying rates, drawing ability often offers a more accurate reflection of intellectual growth during this stage.

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Figure 11.9: Early, nonrepresentational mark-making
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Figure 11.10: A mandala becomes an early representational drawing of a sun.
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Figure 11.11: The emergence of the “potato person”: a first effort at representing a person
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Figure 11.12: A more advanced drawing: person wearing “sparkly shoes”

The painting progress of children is not as well-documented as their drawing progress. In general, children begin by simply experimenting with brushstrokes and the process of applying paint to a surface. Children’s first paintings are usually solid sections of a single color, two colors, or three colors at the most. The brushstrokes begin to change directions, and shapes emerge. Finally, children begin to attempt representational paintings. The subject matter of such paintings varies depending on the child, the teacher, and the environment.[2]

Teachers can support children’s development of the visual arts foundations with the following:

  • Encourage engagement with art at all levels.
  • Support exploration and discovery.
  • Give children the time and space needed to explore creativity.
  • Provide a comfortable environment in which children can practice art.
  • Provide opportunities for children to reflect on their work.
  • Respect individual developmental, cultural, and linguistic differences, and encourage children to respect them.
  • Provide children simply with a means and place to make marks (e.g., a crayon and paper), and they will begin with the same basic images.
  • Encourage communication around shape and form to aid children’s drawing skills.
  • Help children acquire painting skills through practice with the tools.
  • Stimulate children’s interest in color and the application of paint through other forms of painting.
  • Create opportunities for children to work with dough, clay, or wet sand.
  • Provide only the malleable material, without tools, during children’s initial explorations of sculpting so that children have a chance to explore through touch.
  • Communicate with a group of linguistically and culturally diverse children through sculpture techniques by using nonverbal methods.
  • Introduce tools after observing that children have had many “hands-on” opportunities to explore clay and dough sculpture.[3]
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Figure 11.13: Working with clay is a different experience from working with playdough.[4]
Table 10.2: Suggested Materials for Visual Art[5]

Type of Materials

Examples of Materials

Found or Recycled Materials

Old magazines for cutting and assemblage, toilet paper, and paper towel rolls

Basic

Tempera paints, construction paper, chunky crayons, watercolor trays

Enhanced

Tube watercolors and palette; watercolor paper

Natural Environment

Sticks, rocks, and pinecones for sculpture; clay and natural materials for pressing

Adaptive Materials

Thicker handles on some materials; an easel that can be adjusted to an appropriate height

Vignettes

Ms. Cheng is showing children how colors can be mixed to create other colors. While pouring some yellow paint on the plate, she says, “What is this color?” “Yellow!” shout the children. Knowing that some children speak other home languages, Ms. Lin asks, “Milagros, how do you say yellow in Spanish?” “Amarillo,” Milagros answers. “Samantha, how do you say yellow in Mandarin?” “Huang!” Samantha answers. Ms. Cheng pours out some blue paint and asks the same set of questions. As she moves on to mix the two colors, they turn green. This time, without prompting, some children shout, “Green!” others say, “¡Verde!” and others say, “Lu!”

It is springtime. The children have returned from a walk outdoors with handfuls of yellow flowers. The teacher places the flowers in a cup in the middle of the painting area and asks the children the color of the flowers. Then he asks, “What shapes do you see in the flower?” The children say, “Circles!” “Lines!” “Squares!” The teacher says, “Really? Where?” The children point at different parts of the flower. The teacher brings out brushes and paint and asks the children if they would like to paint the flowers.

Many of the children sit down and begin to work with the materials, producing all kinds of images. When a child has too much paint on the brush, the teacher assists in showing the child how to wipe paint from the brush on the side of the paint container. As the children finish, the teacher encourages children to talk about their paintings and then places them in the drying area. Some children finish quickly, and others become absorbed and work for a very long time. Some want to try several times on new paper. A few children attempt to represent the flowers in their paintings, and others experiment with the movement of the brushes and the mixing of colors on the paper.[6]

References

[1] The California Preschool Curriculum Framework, Volume 2 by the California Department of Education is used with permission

[2] The California Preschool Curriculum Framework, Volume 2 by the California Department of Education is used with permission

[3] The California Preschool Curriculum Framework, Volume 2 by the California Department of Education is used with permission

Source of foundations: The California Preschool Curriculum Framework, Volume 2 by the California Department of Education is used with permission

[4] Image by Jennifer Paris is licensed by CC-BY-4.0

[5] The California Preschool Curriculum Framework, Volume 2 by the California Department of Education is used with permission

[6] The California Preschool Curriculum Framework, Volume 2 by the California Department of Education is used with permission

This page titled 10.4: Supporting the Visual Arts is shared under a not declared license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Erin Jones, EdS, ECSE, MBA.

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Introduction to Curriculum for Early Childhood Education Copyright © by Erin Jones, EdS, ECSE, MBA. All Rights Reserved.

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