When did your child first draw a picture where you could actually tell what it was a picture of....

[Poochierama]

...without them telling you. Like a face or some such.

My DD is nearly 3 has never drawn anything that resembles anything IYKWIM, just scribbles. For instance recently she has painted a pink scribble ('Peppa Pig') a blue scribble ('George Pig') and a red scribble ('a fire').

She also can't hold a crayon / pencil properly and still uses both hands (although favours her right over left most of the time). Is this ok?

Her friends can do pictures of faces, animals and houses even a few letters.

DS (18 months) 'painted' us a beautiful Xmas gift on canvas at nursery.

Quite abstract, but unmistakably a big erect cock whichever way round you turn the frame, can't believe nursery staff didn't get him to swipe a few more splodges of paint on.

Poochie, I think your daughter is totally normal! It seems as though pictures we can recognise don't come until after 3 (most of the time). My son is 2 and 9 months and he does what your DD does and draws squiggles which are colour coded for what they are. A christmas tree he drew was a bit recognisable the green squiggles resembled a triangle and there was a yellow squiggle 'star' at the top and a red squiggle 'present' underneath. This is pretty much the same for all his friends of similar age. Its a bit about perception too. Some parents may call x a 'recognisable picture' and some may not, so a bit hard to go by what others say.

There is also the theory that it is bad to develope too firm a 'pen hold' at this age, because it is hard to 'undo' an incorrect hold. But we were talking about this the other day, and most of us hold a pen incorrectly! I still grip mine in a fist like a 5 yr old, hahaha

DD1 (4yrs) has only now started drawing people that you could say actually look like a person and not a circle with loads of spikes coming out of it

In nursery today they had to draw their family she came home waving it proudly then showed me daddy, herself, DS, DD2 and DD3.....

"um wheres mummy?"

"Oh yeah sorry mummy i didnt have enough room for you"

Ds1 - 19 months. It was quite clearly a car, although he couldn't speak. He also had a perfect pencil grip (since lost), and by the age of 3.5 had produced many many intricate line drawings of cars, pushchairs, trains and bicycles.

Ds2, not yet, and he's 3.10. his stock response is "NO. I don't want to. You draw instead. Draw a cat."

Guess who's got the special needs?

Actually, last summer, ds2 did a HUGE scribble, and declared it to be "the big scary rollercoaster on holiday"

ds1 3.6 and still very much on scribbles - he's only been able to do circles since about 3. Occasionally he'll say he's going to put some eyes on but then won't stop at 2 and gets carried away putting them all over the paper. He adores drawing and painting though, just won't be told how to do it and won't copy - he is very proud indeed of his creations and they have to be 'just so'. They made a bear picture at pre-school the other day and his was the only one with the fur stuck on upside down - he knew what it was supposed to be like but said it looked better his way. I love his artwork because of that, even though what is produced at the end looks like nothing on earth.

His friend (a girl) has been doing people with arms, legs and even necks and shoes since she was just over 2.

NumptyMum - Generally painting is fab, we do lots of brushes, hands, feet, fingers e.t.c

We also have been known to do wellie prints, shoe prints, e.t.c

Try painting with other things,
-feathers
-leaves
-cars (toys)
-roller ball (old deordant bottles)
-tea bags
-tooth brushes
-megablocks, lego
-pasta

Put things into the paint
-sand
-lentils
-porrige
-glue

do different things with it
-use a sandwich bag with zip lock, pour in paint and close spread the paint out from the outside, if you put more then one colour in you can see how two colours make another one.

-mix it with water and washing up liquid (when the child is old enough to know how to blow not suck) make a cup of the mixture up, blow into make the bubbles rise above the top and take prints

• be brave maybe paint your windows, it does come off (although you may want to cover the surrounding area)

erm i'll see if ic an think of anything else!!

Thanks Cookielove - will try some of these (not sure about toothbrushes yet, could cause confusion... ).

Get some rolls of wallpaper lining parer and cover the floor with it. then strip down to pants. add paint, pasta, oats, spoons, straws, brushes, fingers, feet etc.

dd (2.8) does very intricate scribbles and claims they are all sorts of things!

She does try to hold the pen properly but has a weird hold involving all of her fingers and thumb!