Art education: teaching perspective

[Ceramiq]

Does anybody know how old children need to be to be taught perspective? I presume that at 4 or 5 they aren't developmentally ready but at what age are they?

I was taught perspective at age 7. We did things like trains coming out of tunnels, cubes and so on.

I was very fortunate to have a very traditional art teacher from a young age who focused on draftsmanship, colour theory, perspective etc.

Before age 7, I would just let them experiment unless they are asking how to make it look real and getting frustrated (which would be unusual). If it's your senses that are disturbed by wonky perspective then don't worry about it for now. I think it's around 11 that children want to make things look right iirc.

(I have a degree from art college and have been a designer for decades).

@OhCrumbsWhereNow Thank you for your insights! About 7 sounds good to me. I'm very frustrated by schools that insist on abstract art when children actually want to learn to represent the world around them through observation and need technique to do so.

I'm afraid it's going to be a world of pain for you when it comes to art education in the UK.

I have a very traditional, old school style - which did not go down well with college tutors or many art teachers - but did make me very employable once I escaped.

However there are lots of options these days to learn properly - youtube, online courses, weekend courses etc. The stuckists are worth investigating as well. Nothing wrong with abstract art, but I am very old fashioned and think you cannot do abstract art well without very solid traditional drawing skills underpinning it... Picasso was a master draftsman at a very young age.

At 4, the most important thing is to be having fun and enjoying it, as well as being exposed to different art and artists - galleries, museums etc. Also different mediums - paint, pencils, clay, chalks etc.

With my own DD (who I steered away from art as anything more than a hobby), I saw she was getting frustrated quite young and so I showed her how to do shading to make things look three dimensional, and also teaching her how to see.

By that, things like understanding negative space and proportion and seeing how colour works and that you might think that that apple is red in your mind, but when you look properly there is blue in the reflections, and greener bits etc.

There's lots of info online about how children's art progresses which is fascinating and might help you see when to step in and when to just wait and watch. Things like around 3-4, people have heads, arms, eyelashes, nostrils, fingers.... but no body!

I taught perspective drawing to yr 7 (11 yr olds) as part of a DT graphics project covering this and isometric drawing.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow Fortunately I don't have to contend with art education directly for my own children who are all grown up. One of them does a lot of art. My question is for a friend who runs a school and with whom I have been having some ongoing conversations about specific skills that it would be good to teach children. There is is ABRSM or LAMDA equivalent for art as far as I can see, though it would be helpful.