Drawing is the key
Photography aside, drawing is a fundamental skill for all representation of visual images on paper. In fact, the representation of visual images on a flat surface is drawing, whatever material is used. (And even a camera is a sort of automatic drawing machine.) To grow the skills needed to make creative art effectively, children need to develop their ability to draw. Learning to draw was always at the heart of art teaching in our school. All children can learn to draw - but in their own way, which is important. There are are many different ways to draw, and to be original and creative every child needs to discover and develop their own way of drawing, of creating images on paper.
3-D to 2-D
The skill of drawing is to represent a 3-D world, or part of it, in 2-D, on paper or whatever. This is actually not at all easy, but it is what children need to learn. And, to do so, they need to look at something three dimensional (be it large or small scale) in such a way that they can start to draw it, i.e. represent it in two dimensions.
Drawing from an existing picture ( or photograph) does no really cut the mustard. Copying an existing picture can be a relatively quick and comparatively easy way to produce a new image, but in an existing picture or photo the ‘hard bit’ of translating three dimensions into two had already been done. It is essentially someone else’s way of making a picture. Like writing a version of someone else’s story, copying of pastiching can sometimes be an interesting thing to do, but it is not really the same as creating your own.
Give them something 3-D to look at and draw (outside or in, big or small) - and not just once but often. However whilst subjects for drawing do have to be 3-D, they don’t necessarily always have to be alive. Inanimate objects, including things like models of animals and artificial flowers, will often serve very well.
Draw what you see (not what you think is there)
And, yes, children do need to learn how to look. It is the most important thing they need to do in order to develop their drawing. And it is the thing a teacher (any teacher) can help with most. One of my constant refrains when teaching art was: Look. Look really carefully. You should be doing more looking than drawing.
Young children tend to draw what they think (know) is there, not what they see. Let’s say a particular plate is round, as they often are. Children know that it is round - and a circle is what many will try to draw to represent it, But it only actually looks like a perfect circle if we see it absolutely face on, or from directly above, which we rarely do. The shape a child observing the plate is likely to see is not a perfect circle at all. They need to look carefully at the shape they actually see, from where they are, and draw that. Similarly we know that most people are fortunate enough to have two arms, but from where we are looking at them we may only be able to see one, or perhaps only part of one, and the arm shape will be affected by our viewpoint too. Probably the most important thing I say to children learning to look and draw, and I say it over and over, is: Look. Look really carefully. Draw what you see, not what you think it there .
Draw it in your own way
The more carefully they look, the more interesting (and often wonderful) they will realise things are. However, having helped a child to look, it is important to let them draw what they see in their own way. This is their artistic integrity. A good teacher of art need not be good at art. They do not need to demonstrate how to draw something, in fact they categorically shouldn’t. Not should they ever change or alter the child’s own drawing. Referring to the object of observation they might say things like: “What shape does this look to you? Which bit looks bigger? What is behind what? How much of this can you see? What colour does this look?” But never, of their drawing: ‘That doesn’t look right.” Or even worse: “That’s wrong.”
No such thing as ‘wrong’
In art there is no such thing a wrong. I believe that a child saying, “I can’t draw,” is a purely learned response. Un-teach it, or, better still, help avoid it in the first place. Any child can draw, in their own way.
You only need to teach them to look, not show them how to draw. Just get them to look, look, look; draw, draw draw. As often as possible directly from observation of the 3-D world. The way to develop children’s drawing is to develop their looking.
Drawing from observation need not be a sterile or repetitive exercise. There are so many different things to draw, large and small, inside and out. Sustained experience in a number of versatile media (pencil, pen, pastel, paint even computer or tablet) opens up infinite possibilities, infinite scope for individual creativity and self-expression.
This may not be the most currently orthodox approach to primary art, but I can only say that it works in practice, developing skills strongly and quickly, releasing rather than inhibiting their creativity.
