Emergence of representational activity during the early drawing stage: process analysis

This study analyzed the process underlying the emergence of representational drawing. Eighty‐seven children aged 1–3 years were asked to color or draw either a simple picture (P) or a contour for an object (DC) in a shared task. After that, they were asked to draw their mother on a blank sheet of paper in a no drawn contour task (NC). Whereas 1½‐ and 2‐year‐olds were more successful in the P task than in the DC task, the 2½‐ and 3‐year‐olds were successful in both. The 2‐year‐olds were better in the DC than the NC task. The results show that 1½‐ and 2‐year‐olds can extract the component parts of a drawing even though they cannot produce them and children over 2½ years old can organize these components into a drawing by themselves. These findings indicate that representational drawing is based on the extraction of the component parts and the acquisition of the drawing ability to combine the parts into a drawing and that the beginnings of representational drawing are found in 1½‐ and 2‐year‐old children.