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ANNABELS DANCING BALLERINAS

Annabel and Her Dancing Ballerinas


Emily Carrillo
University of Missouri

ANNABELS DANCING BALLERINAS

Annabel and Her Dancing Ballerinas Research


Report
Introduction
Art integration is teaching in which students construct and
demonstrate understanding through an art form (Defining Arts Integration,
2010). I believe this quote is very true but I also believe that you dont
always have to be taught art. Art is a form of self expression where students
learn to understand the world through a certain medium. Children can
develop understanding for the world through spatial/functional relationships
and through the task of putting their emotions on a piece of paper.

Method
For this paper, I interviewed a child who is almost 4. She loves to
draw almost anything, so when I asked her if she would draw me a picture of
herself and something she likes to do she was so excited. Drawing, for her, is
a way of expressing herself and to get her opinion across. Annabel is a 3
year old with an amazingly creative imagination, she imagines herself a
princess one day and a sailor the next. The week I interviewed her, she told
me she wanted to be a famous ballerina.
In my findings, I will be describing Annabels drawing and explain
why she is at a certain artistic developmental stage. Most children do not fall
in just one stage. Looking at her art for these stages is a way to interpret
how Annabel and other children her age are developing. For Annabels age,

ANNABELS DANCING BALLERINAS


she should be at the Scribbling Stage or the Pre-schematic stage of
development. The difference between these stages is vast because it
develops from unintelligible drawings to actual shapes that can be
interpreted. The Pre-schematic stage involves a lot more back ground
knowledge on the part of the artist.
I was unable to view Annabel as she drew, but her mom called me
and explained to me the process in which Annabel created her drawing. It
would have been helpful to have seen her draw, but the final drawing was
clear enough that I did not need much more information.

Findings
Since Annabel wanted to be a ballerina this week, she drew a picture

ANNABELS DANCING BALLERINAS


of herself and her best friend in a tutu as well. This is really interesting, in my
opinion, because it shows that she is not ego-centric and has the ability to
bring other friends in to the picture. Annabels decision to draw shoes on
herself is interesting because usually children her age do not do that. Her
pink ballet shoes were drawn on her body because those are an important
part of the role she wants to be. She drew her hair and her dress blue
because that is her favorite color of the moment, even though in real life her
hair is a beautiful light strawberry blonde verging on red. Drawings in the
stage of development that Annabel is in usually dont have realistic colors
or shapes (Art for Children, 47). You will notice that she drew her friend
much smaller than herself and with much less detail. This shows that she is
giving herself much more detail and her friend may or may not have been
drawn as an afterthought. There is a pink sun against a completely white
background, void of any floor or color behind the main girls in the drawing.
The objects drawn in preschematic drawings usually float around the page
(Art for Children, 47).
In my opinion, Annabel is in the preschematic stage because she has
just begun giving people a human shape, but she still does not draw feet or
hands. She has the gradual inclusion of arms (Art for Children, 47) but does
omit some key parts in her picture such as her friends legs. Objects in the
drawing are both distorted and not in proportion to each other which is
directly correlated to this stage of drawing. Annabels drawing puts herself
directly front and center which follows the special representation guidelines

ANNABELS DANCING BALLERINAS


for this stage. Annabels drawings are looking at viewer (Art for Children,
47) and are smiling and happy which again confirms that she is in the Preschematic stage of development.

Conclusion
Watching and listening to Annabel draw gave me a sense of
excitement about teaching. Here she was, a little girl not even in
kindergarten yet and she already has this amazing sense of wonder and
excitement about creating something that I wish I had. The level of a
preschematic drawer is reached typically around 4-7 years old, as
mentioned in the Art for Children booklet page 46, which makes it even more
amazing that she has reached this level before turning 4. Also after watching
Annabel draw, I began to think about what it would be like to teach an art
class in an elementary school. When I googled Tips to being a good art
teacher I came upon this really interesting website called,
DeepSpaceSparkle.com, which is an art-related website that sells art
supplies and has how-to videos as well as articles written about art. Patty
Palmer, one of the websites writers, said My philosophy is quite simple: To
engage, inspire and teach art with age-appropriate techniques and subjects.
This philosophy sticks with me because in all of our classes this semester we
have discussed how to teach while still being age-appropriate at the same
time. I would do this in my classes by finding things the students in my
classes were interested in and developing projects around those hobbies.
Annabel loves drawing because she draws what she is interested in. I am

ANNABELS DANCING BALLERINAS


sure if I asked her to draw something that I was interested in, she would not
be as excited about the topic.
After discussing Annabels drawing with my teacher, she suggested
that Annabels drawing could even be considered the next stage which is The
Schematic Stage. This stage is typical of 7-9 year olds and is characterized in
her drawing by no overlapping (Art for Children, 48) and her repeated
schema for person (Art for Children, 48). My art teacher, Amy, said that a
child is almost never in one stage exactly, they are usually in between two.
To think that my 3 year old niece is drawing at a potentially 9-year-old
level is exciting to hear, because she could become an amazing artist like
her parents. One of her parents is an engineer so she draws often. Her father
is an avid chef and loves to do arts and crafts with Annabel to inspire her
creativity.
Overall, we can clearly see Annabel has an amazing imagination. In a
blog entitled, TeachingChannel.org, I read that encouraging speaking,
listening, and vocabulary development skills through the use of art can
potentially increase school scores especially when paired with the common
core. Watching her draw was also very beneficial to my education because I
was able to put my knowledge in to a real life scenario by analyzing her
drawing.

ANNABELS DANCING BALLERINAS

References
Fung, J. (2013, May 15). Simple Ways To Integrate Arts Into Your Classroom.
Retrieved
October 15, 2015.
LTC 4240 Sections 1 & 2 "Art for Children" (pp. 46-48). (2015). Columbia,
Missouri:
MizzouPublishing.

ANNABELS DANCING BALLERINAS


Palmer, P. (2011, November 18). Top Eight Tips for Teaching Art to Children.
Retrieved
October 7, 2015.
Silverstein, L., & Layne, S. (2010). Defining Arts Integration. The John F.
Kennedy Center for
Performing Arts.

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