How old is the child who drew this?

@374jtwqj My DS is 16, he's on course to do very well in his GCSEs. For him, I'd have said 8 or 9 for that drawing. His handwriting is also not very good. All it means is that his handwriting and his drawing are not very good - it doesn't say anything else about your or my DS. Yours has other lovely talents, judging by your posts, and I know mine does too. Make sure he knows that - being too self-judgmental can be very damaging.

My DD could actually draw like this at 2.5 (yes, some kids can draw that early!) My DS on the other hand could probably only just manage something similar and he is 9! Some kids are good at drawing, some aren’t.

I have deliberately not read the OP's posts so as to not bias my thoughts. But my experience of primary teaching would suggest any age from 4 (maybe a talented 3) to 7, possibly higher if had specific additional needs.

It varies massively.

MN will not generally give you a typical view on such matters ime. They will minimise the age as much as possible.

My Y1 can draw a bit better than that but he draws nearly every day, he loves it.
it's absolutely in the range of normal.

Looks very, very similar to my 4 year old's drawings, so I'd guess 4 at the oldest?

Our child had zero interest in art at all at that age I would have been super happy if he hard drawn that. Never wanted to colour etc just wasn’t his thing. It all happened all of a sudden at about 10 ish and his skill just exploded and would spend quite a bit of time on it. Now in first form of secondary school and predicted a top grade at GCSE already.

It is often a good idea to click on 'see all OP's posts' before commenting on 10 page thread.

Based on my experience working with children all my life, I would say 4. Definitely not more than 5.

Don't tell us it was your newborn that drew this while you were preparing a bottle?

6 is fine and it’s a very cute picture.

Primary school teacher here; and lots of experience with the 4-7 age group, and assessing their work too. I would have guessed 6. Some of the lines are crude, and it makes sense that you say he also struggles with handwriting, but the level of detail and variety in the trees and flowers, and the level of realism (no floating objects, all the body parts of the cat are there, and relatively proportionate too) are definitely indicative of an older kid. I'd consider a 4 year old who could draw this definitely advanced. For a six year old who is not particularly neat or artsy, this is about right.

Have a look at this website:

https://www.littlebigartists.com/articles/drawing-development-in-children-the-stages-from-0-to-17-years/

This is the schematic phase, which as you see is roughly from 5-9 years old.

Lots to like about this picture! He should be proud.

His picture bears a very strong resemblance to the sort of drawings I was doing aged about 6 to 8, maybe even older. I was never good at drawing, but I can't remember feeling sad about it. Has someone been saying something mean to make your son feel this way?

4-5

8 ?
some of the year 3s in the class I work in are about this level.

Try Art for Kids. It's on You Tube. It's fun, engaging, my children loved it and and it really improved their skills.

5

The thing is @374jtwqj some people are good at drawing and some aren't but it's not a deficiency that will hold him back in life 🤷🏻‍♀️ just explain to him that everyone has different talents and encourage his.

3-5ish

How thoughtful of your son to put lots of effort into a drawing for his Dad. I expect all the things he's drawn he can tell you about.
I was always terrible at drawing (and rubbish handwriting...) and so I started to hate art generally. My (very artistic) mum showed me all sorts of art so I knew that it can be more about expression than accuracy and just because I wasn't naturally talented at drawing, it doesn't mean I'm not good at anything.
Perhaps he could build a lego thing for his Dad?
Though, if he's worried about his Dad being ill, and he's got the impression that a nice drawing from him will make his Dad feel better, it may be that he won't think anything is good enough. Perhaps some deflection of feelings?

I was doing drawings like that at around five on, and have managed perfectly fine in life. I've actually done quite a bit of amateur design and craft and have a few qualifications in different design areas.
My son newly 8, is gifted at drawing, but hates dressing himself and struggles to put socks on! He was ten minutes late coming out of school the other day for that reason!
Just keep encouraging 😀 Also kids, often have dramatic leaps where something just clicks and the skill noticeably gets stronger.

wrong thread

i only commented because my son drew a picture at 4 with detailed face, eye brows and his nursery teacher was so impressed.

I would say around 5 but my DS's drawings looked like that at age 7/8 because he wasn't into drawing much. He's nearly 10 now and is much better. But it doesn't matter anyway! Drawing is for fun and enjoyment, if your child is enjoying it then the output is immaterial.

I've absolutely no idea about what kind of drawings a child should do at different ages. I don't know if there are different expectations in terms of accuracy or different styles that come in at different ages. But I just wanted to say I'm an artist and I really really like this drawing.

I love the use of colour and the energy and I really love the humour in it. The cat up the tree is class! As an overall picture it is really fun and humorous and I'd have loved to get something like that.

Children get an idea in their heads that they are good at this and bad at that. Then give up on the things they feel they were "bad" at which could have added so much to their lives in terms of fun or focus or expression. It becomes a thing where they don't enjoy a certain thing as it makes them feel bad. But drawing is for everyone, at any age. I was considered very good at drawing as a child but I think largely the reason is I did it a lot and the reason for that is that it was my thing and I had lots of access to pens and paints and paper and I could do what I wanted. I also had access to books of paintings which was inspiring. Thinking back a lot of my friends had no paper lying about all over the place or access to other artworks to look at. It just wasn't a part of their lives really.

School demands a certain thing artwise. Then later on you find there are a tonload of people out there who can draw fairly representationally but get stuck just doing fairly representation studies and not doing anything with it, perhaps forever. The key thing is having your own thing you enjoyr or say or do with it. The other thing is that people who are great at drawing are not always that good at painting and vice versa. We get obsessed with lines around things in drawing. Whereas painting is about colour and boldness and not about the lines.

I love the use of the colours and blocks of vibrant and energetic felt tip in this. I like the way it's not about lines but about those blocks of colour. I adore the humour.

Perhaps try giving him more detailed feedback and encouragement. Maybe do some drawing with him so he can see it's fun rather than something from school that he feels bad about. Please don't let him get so down on himself about a great drawing that was a beautiful and fun gift.

Maybe he doesn't want to draw, but the sadness you describe about his attitude to his drawing is heartbreaking when I'm looking at such a lively and zingy piece.

It looks fine for 6. It's perhaps not the most skillful art ever (still at least as good as my efforts!), but you can tell it's not a really young child because of the accuracy & attention to detail - right number of legs, ears, tail etc. on animals; scale (trees are bigger than animals, flowers are smaller); convention of blue sky on top, green grass underneath and so on. He has clearly made a real effort, e.g. blending different colours in the sun, having different species of tree.

If he wants to improve in drawing, there are steps you can take, as other pp have said, but I wouldn't be at all worried by his development.

FWIW, I did an art activity with 14 & 15 year olds recently. There was a huge variety in their artistic abilities, with no correlation at all to their performance on the rest of the course more widely.

I think it shows loads of potential. He's clearly observant and trying to get some of the birds right. It's a great picture. He sounds frustrated because he can tell that his skill level doesn't match what he wants to be able to draw. My DC were the same. Both actually v good at drawing from an early age but often disappointed with their pictures.