Introduction

Introduction

This book shows how young children's drawings and paintings begin and develop, and why their early visual representations and expressions are important – namely because, when they represent anything (using a mark, a shape, an action or an object) they make something stand for something else, and through expression (in speech, action or images) they show emotion. They also use visual media to produce and investigate lines, shapes and colours in a process which is related to other intellectual domains, for example, language, logic and mathematics. Children use anything they can get their hands on to form the beginnings of symbolic thought (Kress, 1997). Drawing especially helps the child's understanding of symbols, and signs and representation, understanding which will become crucial in her encounters ...