In the current climate of state-mandated education standards and assessment that prioritize math and language arts in U.S. schools, drawing, an accessible and/or pleasurable endeavor for a wide variety of children, is undervalued. Although research in art education over the past four decades has shown children's drawing and drawings to be rich…

The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing stay-at-home orders have shifted family lives worldwide. Government regulations about social distancing and isolation have resulted in parents/carers and children spending most of their time together in private spaces. During the northern hemisphere spring 2020 semester, most childcare and school systems closed…

This article explores the technology fluency of the preschool "digital native" and how this familiarity with technology influences learning in the classroom. The study involved introducing tablets as a tool for mark making and observing how students engaged with the technology creatively. This study considered the continuously rising…

This article reports on the most recent phase of an ongoing research program that examines the artistic graphic representational behavior and paintings of children between the ages of four and seven. The goal of this research program is to articulate a contemporary account of artistic growth and to illuminate how young children's changing…

In this article, the author examines the use of transitional objects in a case study of a 12-year-old boy, documenting the role of art therapy in helping the boy cope with the trauma of his parents' recent separation and divorce. Transitional objects emerged spontaneously as the boy integrated the transition that the divorce of his parents…

A study revealed that some of the art and craft supplies being used by most Washington, D.C. area public school districts (City of Alexandria, Arlington and Fairfax counties--Virginia; Montgomery and Prince George's counties--Maryland; and the District of Columbia) contained toxic ingredients which could cause serious, long-term damage, sterility,…

Reports the results of a two-year case study of 144 third and fourth graders' art materials preferences. Results indicate that the students preferred different media for different reasons, with favorites being clay, craypas, felt-tipped pens, and cardboard or wood. Maintains that art educators should take into account students' perceptions about…

Sixty-one children were asked to construct a man, using six different methods. Data indicate that ability to identify body parts, eye-hand coordination, or use of particular materials made no significant differences in success, which seemed more related to the understanding that shapes may have symbolic meaning. (Author/SJL)

This study examines the emergence of aesthetic sensitivity in the young child as a maker of art and as a critic of the work of peers. Two studies were designed to explore the child's own, mostly implicit, assumptions about child art, sensitivity to stylistic and drawing system differences, and to compositional patterns that characterize the work…

Examines the way first-year public high school students drew the human figure from life, photographs, and copies of master drawings. Finds that the three referents were not significantly different in supplying information to learn specified art elements. Maintains that drawing from life needs to be reexamined. (KM)

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of verbal experience on children's creative expression and to develop more precise means for interpreting and evaluating children's art. Two questions were of interest: (1) Does the experimental approach described here enable children to resist forces tending to cause stereotyped artistic…