Expressing Movement in Drawings of Children at Preschool and Early School Age
Expressing Movement in Drawings of Children at Preschool and Early School Age

Summary/Abstract: The article presents theoretical considerations and empirical analyses – based on research conducted among 5–6-year-old preschool children and pupils of early school education (Grades 1–3 of elementary school) – dealing with the issue of the difficult task of illustrating movement in drawings by children. The analysis of 1,471 drawings proved that the children examined by the author generally created pictures which lack in dynamics (51.3%). However, they occasionally undertake to express motion, their attempts being more or less successful. They most frequently do this through drawing bent limbs, different placements of the body, sometimes by application of different sizes of silhouettes or may suggest movement by the use of an arrow, stroke or a streak meant to stress the dynamic character of the situation. Among the less frequently used means, there are representation of a figure in profile, from the side and by bending the trunk of the human body. The research proved also that the sex is a factor which varies the skill of expressing movement in drawings – girls, generally, coping with the task with more expertise than boys. The comparison between the skill of illustrating motion typical of contemporary children and that reported on by researchers in the past points to the fact that today’s children more often undertake to illustrate motion in their pictures than their counterparts examined, for instance, by Stefan Szuman or Bolesław Hornowski about 90 and 50 years ago, respectively. On the whole, technical difficulties do not pose a serious problem for a child attempting self-expression through drawing – he or she will find a way to somehow illustrate movement.

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