How to teach a child to draw?

The first years of the life of a little man is an active knowledge of the world. Drawing is one of the ways to realize your own fantasies, visions of the world around you. Today we’ll talk about how to teach a child to draw. This lesson is no less exciting than playing with cubes and dolls. If you wish, you can think up and depict a variety of stories on paper: a magic castle for a princess, luxurious doll outfits, a map for a fabulous journey, and much more. If you manage to instill in your child several ways of drawing, then soon you will notice how his own imagination develops.

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Teaching a child to draw: what does it give?

• Development of coordination of movement and finger motility. This is directly related to the mental development of the child. Drawing is one way of developing memory, connected speech, and attention.
• The ability to portray various subjects is a step in preparation for mastering writing.
• When drawing, the young artist studies new shades and colors, receives the first ideas about the composition, size, quantity and relative position of objects.
• The vocabulary of the baby is not yet so rich, so creativity allows him to express his feelings and impressions.

Important! So that the first lessons of creativity do not turn into allergies or other undesirable consequences, find out how to choose safe felt-tip pens for a child.

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Start of classes

Children become interested in drawing very early. Toddlers try to imitate older children and adults. It is important to develop this interest and suggest experimenting with a pencil and an album. At first, the child watches as an adult draws, watches with a glance over the movements of the pencil:

• After about six months, suggest the little one “paint” with special paints using his hands and fingers.
• By about a year and a half, when the fingers are sufficiently strong, get felt-tip pens, brushes and pencils for it.

Important! Naturally, one cannot demand that a child begin to draw from the first lessons. First, funny scribbles will appear on paper. Professionals call this period the “stage of maraia". Until about 2 years old, the child will not create any images on paper. He learns the possibilities of a pencil or felt-tip pen, striking them on paper.

So, at the first stage of training you can solve such problems:

• To teach the child to hold a felt-tip pen or pencil in his hand.
• Draw the simplest geometric shapes, paint them in different colors.

How to teach a child to draw with a pencil? Shaping the right grip

Forming a three-finger grip is not easy. This happens gradually, and is not always associated with creativity. By about 9-10 months, the baby learns to take objects with the index and thumb. This skill can be fixed using the following games:

• Sorting loose items: beads, small pebbles or buttons. If you wish, you can complicate the task - sort items by containers.
• A game with clothespins. You can hook clothespins onto fabric or figures cut out of paper.
• Tweezers. Teach your child to grab and shift from place to place different objects - toys, pasta, pieces of foam.

After the baby has mastered these manipulations perfectly, you can begin to form a three-finger grip:

• Put the pencil in your fingers correctly.But do it not very persistently, otherwise - the child will quickly lose interest in drawing.
• Give the young artist a crayon or small piece of pencil. Holding it with five fingers, with all desire, will not work, so the child will be forced to take these items correctly - with the help of the thumb, middle and index fingers.
• Use pencils with a triangular section for training. Holding a round crumb object is quite difficult.

How to choose the right pencils?

So, we found out that the best option to start teaching a child the basics of drawing is a trihedral pencil. Another important point is the soft stylus. The pencil should leave a clear mark on the paper even with light pressure.

Important! The best option is water-based plastic and wax products. They are easy to sharpen, such pencils do not get dirty hands. They do not have a “chemical” smell; they can easily be washed off clothes.

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First creative skills

Draw for yourself something simple and understandable for the crumbs: a house, the sun, a kitten or a dog. Now let the baby take a pencil and try to portray something. Let it be lines, circles or dots. In any case, praise the child, let him know that he succeeded correctly and beautifully.

Take the kid’s pen to help draw lines and geometric shapes. Move from the simple to the complex. With these actions you train the muscle memory of the crumbs, form the skills that are useful in self-drawing.

Important! At the same time read poetry, sing children's songs. The more you know them, the more opportunities there are to come up with new interesting stories. Read to your child the tales of Vladimir Suteev “Capricious Cat”, “Mouse and Pencil” or “Rooster and Paints”. These are not just fascinating stories with wonderful pictures, but step-by-step workshops on drawing a house with a garden and a pond or the same cat. By the way, the cockerel was also painted in stages, so everything is very clear.

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Image lines

If an adult does not cost anything to draw a straight, broken or wavy line, then for a small child this is a rather difficult task. The baby does not yet control the movement of the hand, and it is difficult for him to cope with pencils. To develop this skill, offer him some games. How to teach a child 4 years old? Here are some practical ideas for this.

Couplers

This game not only teaches you how to draw lines, but also helps to train logical thinking. For example, give the child the task of connecting the lines:

• Fruits and a plate.
• The same geometric shapes.
• Images of an adult animal and a baby.
• Images of monochrome objects.

The task may be simpler or more complicated, depending on the knowledge of the child.

Important! In addition to drawing, there are many more interesting and useful activities that you can do at home with your favorite child. Browse our selection of interesting ideas,what to do with the child.

Dorisuy

You offer the kid a picture in which you need to finish some simple detail (smoke from the chimney of a house, a mushroom hat, the rays of the sun). You can draw clouds from which it rains. There are many options.

Using stencils

This is an excellent exercise for training muscle memory. Stencils can be cut by yourself or buy ready-made. On sale there is a large selection of stencils on various topics (marine inhabitants, vegetables, fruits, domestic and wild animals). Stencil can also serve as details from the cube-sorter. The options for this game are almost endless.

Paints

This is the next stage after the depiction of lines and geometric shapes. Paints open up new possibilities for a child to realize himself in creativity. The most interesting thing is the mixing of colors.

Important! At this stage, it is useful to read the book by Yu. Smolnikov “Three Fun Colors” to the child. There, color mixing is described very witty and interesting. It is also important to teach your child how to use dyes so that they are not too thick or liquid.

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We act independently

To teach a child to draw is exciting and difficult at the same time. By the age of 5, he may well draw on his own. All that remains for you is the role of a lover of children's creativity. The kid managed to accumulate enough knowledge and skills to realistically depict them on paper. It was during this period that the young talent tried to draw cars, human figures, animals and plants. Here, already learned techniques will come in handy. For example:

• It is advisable to draw a person and animals (recall the “Pencil and Mouse” by V. Suteev) using circles and ellipses, if possible, not forgetting the proportions.
• The car is easiest to depict from the body, then drafting headlights, wheels and filling the contour with windows and doors.

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Stock footage

Do not forget to praise the child. Even when the result, to put it mildly, is far from ideal. This will allow the baby to gain confidence in their own abilities and abilities. In the end, he will succeed perfectly!