Oh no! She doesn't want to draw

Cakey used to draw all the time but in the last few months she seems to have lost interest. She went through a similar phase when she was 2 (she is now 3.5). All of a sudden she went from happily drawing to just sitting at her drawing table asking me to draw a 'car', 'boat, 'cat' etc. When I asked her to try drawing a 'car' or any other object she would refuse to try.

We got over this hump when I stopped drawing actual objects and started to draw at her level which at that time was a lot of coloured patches, various scribbles, the occasional circle and lots of lines. It only took a short while before she couldn't resist joining in and she was away again in the drawing department.

To get over our latest drawing roadblock I needed another sort of intervention – and it was handed to me on a plate! Cakey spends her life asking questions, one of these questions was about the dolphin logo on a plumber's van. The conversation went something like this:

• C: Why is that dolphin there?
• Me: It is a logo for a plumber.
• C: What's a logo?
• Me: A logo is a drawing that people use to identify their businesses.
• C: Do I have a logo?
• Me: No.
• C: Why?
• Me: Um well, you don't have a business to advertise.
• C: I want a dolphin logo.
• Me: Oh ok.
• C: How do we make one?
• Me: Well we have to draw lots of different dolphins and then you can pick your favourite one to be your logo.
• C: Can we do that?
• Me: Absolutely.

As soon as we got home, I found some small pieces of paper and we each drew some dolphins. We used one of her toy dolphins as a model. We talked about how to draw each part of the dolphin's body. Once we had a little pile of dolphin drawings, we laid them out and talked about which drawings we liked best and why. I, of course, picked one of Cakey's drawings and she picked one of mine. We then added some extra details to the dolphin logos. Cakey drew on mine and vice versa – we were a creative team re-working and improving our logos!

Our final re-worked logos

I don't know whether this activity sounds a bit odd but logos are everywhere and kids ask questions about everything so I figured I might as well explain what logos are. Even more importantly though, it got her drawing again.

If you want to know more about kid's drawing development have a look at this post Children's Drawing Stages – 6 Things to Look For on the Planning with kids blog.