Drawing a picture is one of the effective methods of one’s self-expression since it constitutes a stronger and simpler communication tool than children’s words and expressions, which they have already learned. In general, a child cannot or does not want to share his or her intense feelings or opinions about himself or herself or family and friends. It is, however, probable for the child to reveal his or her feelings, ideas, fears, and disappointments by means of art because symbols representing children’s emotional responses used during the art activity are artistic-linear depictions of what they have seen, heard, touched, known, perceived and comprehended. Therefore, this specific technique of drawing a picture could be used to elicit more detailed information related to incidents that take part inside the school environment. This is because each picture or drawing may communicate a lot of important information about the children themselves but also about the relationship that the children have with the school. The use of drawing for evaluation purposes is a powerful tool, since most children tend to enjoy drawing without showing any signs of tension [1].

While many school children dislike answering questions or filling in questionnaires, drawing tests can be completed quickly, easily and in an enjoyable way [2]. According to Chambers [3], drawings avoid linguistic barriers and enable comparisons between groups of different languages and abilities. Moreover, Crook [4] argues that it is widely recognised that children may provide insight into their feelings and thoughts about the world through the content of their drawings. 

Sensitive Issues in Pictures / Overall Impressions of Drawings

Another very crucial thing that should be taken into consideration when studying pictures of school children is the relationship that the objects included in the picture have with each other. In our case, studying school as an organisation, it is  important to notice what the children or the teachers are doing in the picture and if they interact with each other. Pictures may reveal interesting clues about the relationship that exists between the people inside the school environment as well as the climate and the culture of the school community. Furthermore, there are some cases in which school children include some comments in their pictures and again provide useful information about the school organisation and the activities that take place inside the school environment. Sometimes children do reveal information or even tell a story through their pictures and drawings and these interpretations provided by the students should be taken into consideration in the analysis. 

As already mentioned art activities provide a safe and enjoyable means that encourage children to explore, make decisions, solve problems and provide a way for them to portray their inner world without having to rely on words [5]. 

Di Leo [6] points out ‘that drawings are one means of establishing a rapid, easy, pleasant rapport for the child’. Children who are shy, quiet, impulsive, have speech and language difficulties usually respond well to drawing activities [7].

According to Statford, there are three levels of meaning when attempting to analyse a picture:

• Description: What is the picture of? Generic description of the objects and actions represented in the picture and factual description.

• What is the picture about? Descriptions of the mood of the picture are expressional descriptions 

• Analysis: What is the content? This requires knowledge of the specific culture. Although we will keep the content in mind, we will often not be capable of providing an analytical description

• Interpretation: What is its intrinsic meaning? 

What feelings and images does it bring to mind

Besides this classification, we also need to ask ourselves some more additional questions such as:

• Who? Who or what is this a picture of? Are there people? Men? Women? Children? Trees? Buildings? A specific named person or thing

• What? What are the creatures or objects in the picture doing? What is their condition or state of being? What emotions are conveyed by these actions or conditions? What abstract ideas do these actions or conditions symbolise

• When? The concept of when can be both a specific date and a time period. Is the time period significant or is the element of time represented in the picture a manifestation or an abstract idea?

• Where? Where is the picture in space? Space includes geographic, cosmographic and architectural space, so as to identify the locale, site or place represented in the picture

Many indicators should be attended to when making hypotheses about the drawing. These indicators pertain to the techniques used and the child’s approach to the drawing. Heavy lines are frequently associated with children who are aggressive, forceful, and have high energy, while light lines are often associated with shyness, inhibitions, insecurity and low energy [7]. Boys typically use heavier lines than girls, whereas excessive erasures and shading are related to anxiety [6-7].

Size, Placement of Objects and Colours

As far as the size of people presented in the drawings is concerned, children who draw small figures of people (about 1 to 3 inches high) frequently are timid, shy and insecure [6]. On the other hand, drawings of very large people that take up most of the page may indicate children’s aggressiveness with poor inner controls. Di Leo [6] asserts that when children draw some people proportionately larger than others, it could connote that the larger drawn person is important to the child in some way. Rezinkoff and Rezinkoff [8] studied black and white children’s family drawings and found out that in low-income families, the oldest child was often drawn in a more dominant position than the other siblings. 

The placement of the objects and people on the page should also be taken into serious consideration. Placing figures at or near the lower edge of the paper may be indicative of feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. Di Leo [9] states that drawing figures in the upper half of the paper suggest optimism and fantasy. Moreover, placing the figure of the person who represents the child doing the drawing close to other figures can mean that the child feels or wants to feel close to that person or has a desire to be protected by that person [10].

The omitted elements on the other hand may be quite significant to the individual in representing or symbolising what is possibly absent from the person’s life [11]. Omissions of body parts, just like the under emphasis of body parts, tend to suggest under-use and anxiety surrounding that part of the body. More specifically, according to Klepsch and Logie [7], omitting parts of the faces may reveal problems with relating to others or it may be a sign of anxiety, insecurity, fears and withdrawal.

As far as the use of colours is concerned, it has been stated that colours have profound effects on the emotions, behaviour and body. Through the use of colour the children can release various moods and emotions that could not be expressed by words [12], thus the work in colour becomes a powerful tool for emotional balance [13]. According to Mahnke, the smearing and playing with bright colours enables the children to experience various aspects of their personalities whereas the overuse of one colour may lead to excessive emotional response, extreme reactions and restlessness. Moreover, children who suffered recent traumas, such as earthquakes chose more red and black colours in their drawings than others [14]. Additionally, Birren [15] points out that outgoing children often prefer warm colours, such as red and orange, whereas they find cool colours not stimulating enough. Introverts, on the other hand, are more sensitive to cool; calming colours and report the warm colours to be distressing.

Table 1: Determinants of Entrepreneurial Intention

Although there is agreement that colour is used to show feelings, mood or tone in a drawing there is lack of agreement on what specific colours represent. For instance, rather than always interpreting red as standing for high emotions or danger and black as representing the unknown of fear or threat, it is more helpful to observe where colour is used, its intensity and quantity, and what it is emphasizing or diminishing [16]. A child might use a great quantity of black and relate that to the sky at night, as when the family went camping and enjoyed sleeping outside.

Psychological and emotional evaluation

Psychological and emotional evaluation through art and drawing is a very complex and complicated procedure. As children draw or paint their mental perceptions of school experiences, they draw what they know or feel, rather than what they see. This is why it is useful for teachers to examine their students’ drawings and at the same time search for any indicators delineated. According to Page [17], there are specific guidelines for interpreting artwork, which include the general characteristics and the feelings indicated. These guidelines that are presented are the following:

Through the interpretation of the pictures children reflect what they know about the world and the school environment in which they belong. Eisner [18] made a strong case for the relationship between art and thinking, learning and academic performance. Children who have directly experienced a wide variety of people, places and objects will have an array of things to choose from when doing art or making drawings. Moreover, according to Schrirmacher [19], translating ideas, concepts and experiences into art involves many thinking skills, as one must decide what to present and how to execute it. When drawing pictures one must plan, organise and make choices. Art involves concentration, staying with a task, seeing it through into completion as well as problem solving- all important skills and habits. Art serves as an index of a child’s thinking. We can look at a child’s artwork, particularly painting and drawing and find out what they know about the world, what they consider important inside the school organisation and how they chose to represent it.

Taking into consideration all the aforementioned issues concerning analysing pictures of school children, it is worth mentioning that the assessment of the images in the drawings should be done in many different levels. It is obvious of course that one of the most important issues that needs to be examined is what is communicated in the drawings and what the children trying to express about their school as an organisation. In this case we need to take into consideration what kind of images are present in the drawings. For example, if the children draw images of their school building, its yard or if they include objects from their classrooms. It is also of great significance to notice if there are people (students, teachers, and helping staff) present in the pictures. 

All in all, pictures drawn by children symbolize a number of organisational elements that are interrelated with the school environment such as the sense of place, identity, trust and community within the organisation. It is quite evident that young learners fulfil their inner need to be a part of an organisation that uses its own symbols that represent the people, ideals, identity, values and history.

1. Barraza, L. “Children’s drawings about the environment.” Environmental Education Research, vol. 5, no. 1, 1999, pp. 49–66.

2. Lewis, D. and J. Greene. Your child’s drawings…their hidden meaning. Hutchinson, 1983.

3. Chambers, D.W. “Stereotypic images of the scientist: The draw-a-scientist test.” Science Education, vol. 67, 1983, pp. 255–265.

4. Crook, C. “Knowledge and appearance.” Visual Order: The Nature and Development of Pictorial Representation, edited by N.H. Freeman and M.V. Cox, Cambridge University Press, 1985.

5. Gil, E. Helping abused and traumatised children. Guilford, 2006.

6. Di Leo J.H. Interpreting children’s drawings. Brunner/Mazel, 1983.

7. Klepsh, M. and L. Logie. Children draw and tell: An introduction to the projective uses of children’s human figure drawings. Brunner/Mazel, 1982.

8. Rezinkoff, M. and H. Rezinkoff. “The family drawing test: A comparative study of children’s drawings.” Journal of Clinical Psychology, vol. 12, 1956, pp. 167–169.

9. Di Leo, J.H. Children’s drawings as diagnostic aids. Brunner/Mazel, 1973.

10. Burns, R.C. and H.S. Kaufman. Actions, styles and symbols in kinetic family drawings (K-F-D): An interpretation manual. Brunner/Mazel, 1972.

11. Furth, G. The secret world of drawings: A Jungian approach to healing through art. Inner City Books, 2002.

12. Withrow, R.L. “The use of colour in art therapy.” Journal of Humanistic Counselling, Education and Development, vol. 43, 2004, pp. 33–40.

13. Mahnke, F. Colour and light in man-made environments. Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1993.

14. Cotton, M. “Creative art expression from a leukemic child.” Art Therapy, vol. 2, 1985, pp. 55–65.

15. Birren, F. Colour psychology and colour therapy. Rev. ed., Sitadel Press, 1980.

16. Peterson, L.W. and M.E. Hardin. Children in distress: A guide for screening children’s art. WW Norton & Company, 1997.

17. Page, R.M. Fostering emotional well-being in the classroom. Jones and Bartlett Publishers International, 2003.

18. Eisner, E.W. “What we know about children’s art—and what we need to know.” McCutchan, 1976.

19. Schirrmacher, R. Art and creative development for young children. 1st ed., Delmar Learning, 2001.