Children's Use of Baselines: Influences of a Circular Format

Abstract

Drawings done on circular paper indicate that the majority of 249 young children in the study conceive a baseline to be a horizontal line upon which objects stand. However, for a notable number of the children, the edge shape of the paper appeared to influence their conception and representation of the baseline. One of the first signs of schematic development in a child's drawing is the introduction of a horizontal baseline that runs parallel to the bottom of the drawing paper. Unlike free-floating preschematic figures, schematic figures are brought down to earth and stand solidly on level ground. It is widely held that the baseline represents a conceptual schema that relates various objects on a common ground. The baseline concept is said to represent what the child knows (i.e., that most objects rest on the ground), not necessarily what he or she sees or feels (Hurwitz & Day, 1991; Kellogg, 1970; Lowenfeld & Brittain, 1987; Luquet, 1927; McFee, 1964). Children occasionally turn their paper to the side or upside-down to extend their baselines. These baselines generally continue to follow the edge of the paper. While the orientation of the paper changes, the child's orientation to the baseline remains the same while he or she is drawing: the baseline remains nearest the child and figures are drawn on top of it. The final drawing may result in a baseline encircling the perimeter of the paper with the various figures all pointed inward. Occasionally, children draw a second or third baseline running parallel to an original baseline near the paper's edge. However, children will fill the original baseline with figures before drawing a second baseline. While the second baseline usually runs parallel to the original baseline, it sometimes rises and falls to accommodate the general contour of the figures already drawn. When a second baseline is drawn through the middle of the paper, the second set of figures has the same orientation as the first. Young children (under age six) do not draw through the center of the paper first and then subsequently along the edge. If the baseline is conceived in the child's mind as a horizontal (level) ground upon which objects stand in relation to one another, the line should remain horizontal regardless of the shape of the paper. The baseline being congruent to the bottom edge of a rectangular piece of paper is merely coincidental; the edge of the paper just happens to be where the baseline is.