Baby Steps in Drawing

The more I looked into homeschooling the more I found that the ability to draw is very useful. Drawing is starting with a blank piece of paper and filling it with ideas. Drawing is observing and internalizing something in enough detail to re-create it.

So, I wanted Sparkle to learn to draw. I'm not looking for realistic images, but I want her to be able to draw recognizable pictures. I also want to be able to ask her to draw something, such as copying a picture, drawing a scene from a book, or drawing something found on a nature walk, and have her draw with confidence. I want to help Sparkle draw so that she isn't so frustrated when the picture she puts on paper doesn't match the picture in her head.

I got a few books on how to teach children to draw: "Drawing with Children" by Mona Brookes, "Draw Squad" by Mark Kistler, and "I Can Do All Things" by Barry Stebbing, not to mention several books written directly to the child, like the Ed Emberly books. I found that all of the books moved way too fast for Sparkle. However, by reading them I was able to get an idea of where to start, especially as I don't draw myself. I decided a few things:

• Drawing requires enough small motor skill to get the pencil to go where you want it to go.
  
• Drawing requires the ability to see the shapes you want to draw.
  
• Drawing starts with an outline drawing, and then you fill the picture with color.


• Drawing can be done with a marker, crayon, pencil, or any other implement. Drawing with a pencil means you can erase mistakes. Drawing with a marker teaches you to not depend on the eraser.
  
• Drawing is a skill that takes practice.

In the end, I cobbled together my own ideas on how to teach Sparkle to draw. My first several attempts failed miserably, so I won't rehash those details. My current attempt seems to be doing better. I have her do Kumon tracing sheets to build up the small motor skills. I put together some simple pictures for Sparkle to copy, based on the drawings in the beginning of the three drawing textbooks.

Every day I have Sparkle copy a drawing and color it. The drawings are small and have few lines so they are fairly quick to do. First I show the drawing to Sparkle and she tells me what it is. Then we discuss the different shapes in the drawing. Where are there straight lines? Curved lines? How big are the shapes? Where do the lines touch? Then I have her start copying the picture. After she draws each line, she is to look back at the original to see if that line is right. For example, if she drew a curved line, is it curving the proper direction? I do insist that she copy each line to the best of her ability, althought I try to let her be the judge in general. After she's done drawing, she colors the picture. She's working on staying inside the lines and on filling the entire area with color so that no white shows through.

Here is Sparkle coloring her drawing of a teacup this morning.


Here is Sparkle with her completed drawing and the original that I drew. Hers is colored and also has steam coming out the top. My original teacup didn't have a saucer; however Sparkle wanted to add one. She first drew an oval under her cup, but wasn't pleased with it. I asked her if it looked like the cup was floating over the saucer and she agreed. Then I showed how to make the oval overlap the cup and she liked that.