WHAT TO AVOID  
When working with a three to six year old child, I never expect adult-like pictures. I never draw for the child. I never ask them to draw from another picture. I do never correct the child. To do so reduces self-confidence. I affirm the child's efforts. Learning is not demanded - it is motivated by the child's desires - not mine. To nurture this in young children, I express interest, I am informational, and always remain positive about the child's own efforts.

I do not give them coloring books or step-by-step projects that result in a stereotype projects designed by somebody other than the child. Children can draw and color their own pictures without tracing or patterns, thereby developing minds that can observe, create, experiment, and excel on their own. Our society has no great need for our children to learn how to manufacture other people's ideas of art. If they get a chance to practice their own ideas, when they reach the age where most children have a crisis of confidence about their drawing, they will know how to overcome and continue to learn. Of course, observation is only one source of ideas for drawings. The other two good sources for artwork are the drawings from experiences (memories) and drawing from the imagination.  

THINGS TO DO

This is age appropriate for any child has been drawing for a long time. After the child has been drawing for a long time, the drawings tend to become more rigid and standardized. The bottom of the picture has generaly acquired baseline. Figures often are made up of geometric shapes or or simple stick figures (sometimes taught to them by their parents).

I offer to help them learn to draw better if they are interested. I then ask them to help me pick out some fairly small item that they like, but something they have never drawn before. I do not want to pick something for which the child's brain has already formed a stereotyped image.

TACTILE PRACTICE
Children learn to observe through all their sensory experiences, not only by vision. I start by running my finger slowly along the side of the object from the same viewpoint that the child sees it. Then the child does the same thing, moving slowly enough to notice each change of direction. I talk about the movements. "Now we are going sideways, now it slants a little, now their is a little wiggle, now it goes sideways. . . " I ask the child to describe the motions in the same way. I praise the children's participation and tell them how well they are doing.

AIR PRACTICE
Next I do this in the air while sighting my finger about 12 inches back from the object. Again I go very slowly and we talk about the motions, so each little change of direction causes my finger to copy it in the air. I then encourage the children to practice drawing in the air with their own finger. We pick another edge and we both do it together in the air while talking it through. We move our fingers very slowly in the air to follow the edge of the object. We talk about each motion. I want them to start looking at the edge of a thing to learn to see one actual line - not the overall shape for now. We call this "practicing the lines" or "learning about the edges and shapes". I praise the child enthusiastically at each stage.

Most of the time in life we do not have to look at things carefully like this. This is the reason most people cannot draw things very well. Adults can also train this part of the brain, but our brains seem easier to form at a younger age. Many parts of the brain have certain developmental times when it is natural for certain things to be learned. We do not know exactly the easiest time to learn careful observation.

BLINDER PRACTICE
Now the child can try a "practice" edge line (not the whole shape) on the paper using a soft lead pencil while not looking at the paper. I never do this part for them or with them because I do not want them to be distracted by looking at my line. It is also not fair to compare my line to their line. It is also not necessary for them to see another person's line. The child's attention needs to remain on the edges being observed.

I offer the use of a "drawing helper". It is a sheet of paper pierced in the center by the pencil to hide the drawing paper. This blinder lays on top of the drawing hand and helps avoid the temptation to look at the drawing instead of looking at the edge of the object being drawn. Observation is not learned by looking down at the paper while drawing. I remind children to move the pencil only while the eye studies the subject. Do it just like we did in the air. Do it slowly. I enthusiastically praise the child at each step along the way.

The eye may look at the paper when the pencil stops, but not while the pencil moves because while the pencil is moving it should be rendering what the eye sees - not something remembered or imagined.  I remind them to look intently and carefully at the subject or object being observed. Just practice one edge, not a whole shape at first.

A REAL DRAWING

After practicing all the edges (this is a jumble of practice lines), the child will want a chance to draw the whole thing. Fine. I offer another of paper for this, but leave the practice sheet where it is easily seen. I they want to, I allow them to try it with the "helper" (blinder), but I allow them to draw without the blinder, reminding them to look at the object most of the time. Looking only at the paper while drawing is natural, so it is a hard habit to change. Unless this habit is changed, good observations never become habitual.

Before they start a drawing, I ask questions that encourage the study of edges and contours. I ask for size comparisons. I ask for angle comparisons.  I ask for light/dark comparisons.

After they have drawn the object, I might say, "That looks great! Is there anything else you can find? Excellent! Do you notice anything else? I LIKE that! Are there some smaller parts? This is a WONDERFUL line! Are there some slanting parts? GOOD job! Are there some curves? Are any parts hiding behind other parts?"

DEALING WITH MISTAKES
I like to give them a very soft lead 6B drawing pencil. It is easy to see the line without pressure. It does not have an eraser, but I have a good quality white eraser where they can see it, but not reach it. If they want to erase, I suggest that artists often just go ahead and draw new lines and leave the old lines, and when they are all done with it they use the eraser and fix it up. This avoids endless erasing - which is hard on self-confidence. Leaving mistakes is a common practice among artists because it facilitates a bit of learning from mistakes. We draw the whole thing then we see the alternatives and start fixing it until we like it. As artists, we may draw something several times until we get it right. Another sheet of paper is fine, but not until the first practice drawing is finished.

IMPORTANT OTHER LEARNING
Observation drawing is only one of three ways that children learn to draw in art. Children should also be drawing from experience (memory), and they should be drawing imaginary topics. These drawing activities develop other important parts of the brain.

DRAWINGS FROM EXPERIENCES
To motivate drawing from experiences and memories, I use lots of open questions that help them remember the details of an experience that was meaningful. "What were some things the elephant liked to eat?" "How did the cat's fur feel?" I ask lots of these sensory questions and the pictures can become very rich with every bit of space filled. We call these accretion questions. It makes passive knowledge into active knowledge. I am uncovering what the child already knows, or in some cases the child will fill in what they do not know with their imaginations. This is fine. If a child gets the number of toes wrong, I do not correct them. I know they will probably be more interested in counting the toes next time they encounter this particular animal. While the child is drawing toes, I might ask, "Do you like to count the toes as you draw them?" Invariably the child will become interested in a counting, while formerly the child was simply interested in showing a multiplicity (any number) of toes.

Sometimes I am with a child while they are having an experience that has the potential for a drawing later. I ask lots of awareness questions. "What color are the eyes?" "How do think it would feel if you could feel the elephant's skin?" "Some children ride on top of elephants - how would that feel?"

When they draw the experience later, they will have more to think about. A child cannot draw what was never noticed in the first place.

I never expect drawings from memory to look realistic. They are meant to tell a story. They express an experience. Realistic drawing develops gradually based on observation practice. We cannot expect immediate transfer of image learning.

NURTURING TRANSFER OF LEARNING
If I know that a child has practiced something very similar (while doing observation practice), I can ask a few questions to help them recall what was learned earlier during observation practice. This may encourage learning from practice in another context. If they remember something helpful, I will recognize and reward this with affirmation.

The thinking habit of transferring learning from one context to another is central to the way creative people are able to think more effectively than the average person. Too often, children are not helped to expect to use knowledge and skills outside the context in which it is originally learned. However, I believe this habit of creative thinking can be nurtured. When studying the habits of creative thinking, this thinking ability is called flexibility. It is also called similarities catching. We know that highly creative people score higher on these attributes. I think these are thinking habits that encourage the transfer of learning. They can be nurtured at a young age.

DRAWING FROM IMAGINATION
The imagination is probably the human minds greatest attribute. It is what distinguishes us from every other living thing on earth. I encourage imagination whenever I see it happening. I never ask, "What is it?" I say, "Wow! This looks neat. Could you tell me more about it? Even before we speak, we can express our imaginations in drawing, painting, and modeling as ways to express our forming minds. Of course many drawings combine observation, memory and imagination.

A child of course has the instinct to imitate, just as every juvenile animal does, but with humans, the brain soon discovers that imitation is a form of pretending. Once it learns how much fun it is to pretend, the human brain also employs the instinct to entrain itself endlessly with games of imagination. This develops our survival skills and becomes the most important way that the human brain becomes intelligent. With our imaginations we have learned to predict things that we have never observed. By inventing scenarios, we invent, we improve our living conditions, we remain safe in new situations, and so on

Drawing from our imaginations is very effective practice routine for the brain. I believe it is one of best ways to build intelligence because it builds an essential survival skill, extends a child's attention span, and in so doing it is making many future learning tasks easier. While drawing on paper from imagination, the child is developing and recording a complex narrative that the child can see, modify, elaborate, talk about, think about, and so on. Many careers are based on planning that requires all kinds of imaginary preplanning. When this part of the brain is formed in childhood, the resulting adult has a most valuable resource.

OTHER INSTINCTS AND NEEDS
I have seen some very young children spend long periods of time simply organizing lines or patterns on paper. I recall an incident when our son was only about three when he stood at his painting easel for nearly an hour while he carefully filled the paper with vertical and then horizontal lines to create a grid from three different colors of tempera paint. I think we all have a natural instinct to create order. In creating order, we may be forming the part of the brain that becomes good at mathematics and geometry. We may be forming our spatial intelligence. This brain development does not happen when a child sits and watches TV.

Other times it may be very important for a child to just make a mess or to scribble out some energy or some frustrations. Art materials and activities provide many paths to the developmental of healthy emotions and intellect.

OTHER MATERIALS
In addition to unlimited paper and a nice drawing pencil, I like to provide any materials that are very easy to use and easy to see.

There are a variety of three dimensional clay-like modeling materials sold for children. Get the materials, but do not give them the all the gadgets invented by the toy marketing department. Just encourage them to use their fingers and some very basic marking tools with clay and clay-like materials. They can model the same subjects that they draw, but a slightly different part of the brain is developed when working in three dimensions. I find that some children can draw very well, but can not form a thing very well that has all its dimensions. If given clay, they may flatten it and draw in on it like it is paper. Other children can model things easily, but are incapable of drawing the same things on paper. By providing both kinds of practice from the age two or three, this kind of developmental discrepancy or handicap is less apt to occur.

I never buy coloring books or activity books that ask for children to do other people's ideas unless I want to raise a child to be dependent person (slave). It is much better if they learn to color in their own lines. I never buy "how to draw" books. These books teach tricks that do not help them learn to make observations or use their own imaginations. I would not encourage the watching of "how to paint" on TV. These artists play to our insecurities. They also give us quick tricks but nothing to help the brain learn. They help us avoid having to learn to actually make observations around us, use our imaginations, or use our memories. TV screens are best at creating passive zombie minds that are easily bored when TV, video game, or computer game is removed.

I give children toys like simple wooden blocks and that can be used for many things. A sand box is great for imaginary play. A thrift store has old cloths to use as drama costumes. I avoid toys that are complex and are only good for one thing. My basic principle used to asses materials, tools, and activities, is whether the brain and body will improve and grow. Enjoyment and satisfaction is also important as motivation, but this is a secondary criteria. If enjoyment is the primary criteria, I would select too many things that are fun and entertaining, but not nurturing.

--end of essay--other readings are listed below--