Cover Page -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Series Preface -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- 1 Painting in Action -- Some questions -- Visual representation and expression -- Drawing and language -- Scribbling and babbling -- The importance of other people -- Painting actions - varying the tempo and direction -- Dynamic patterns of action -- Representing shape and movement -- Painting as patterned dance in space and time -- Play -- Splattering paint -- Summary -- 2 Actions, Skills and Meaning -- Where do representations of movement and objects come from? -- Conversations with newborn babies -- An emotional space between caregiver and baby -- Analysis and discussion -- Babies and movement -- Vertical arc -- Horizontal arc -- Push-pull -- Reaching and grasping -- Horizontal arc and push-pull used in painting -- Summary -- 3 The Beginning of Painting and Drawing -- Three dimensions - objects and people -- Two dimensions -- First painting -- Realising that movements make marks -- Joel begins to draw and paint -- Reasons not causes -- Summary -- 4 Movement into Shape -- Separating and combining movement and shapes -- A family of shapes -- Drawing helps us see and understand -- Using colour: contrasts and links -- The importance of marks and the spaces between them -- Points in space -- Traditional drawing media and electronic paint -- Covering and hiding -- Closed shape -- Putting shapes together, taking them apart and putting them together again -- Making connections: joining things together -- Combining movements and marks: travelling zigzags, waves and travelling loops -- Different movements have different results -- Combining different drawing actions -- Children need to practise and repeat what they know -- Going around, going up, going down and going through.

Round and round, going up, going down and going through -- Summary -- 5 Seeing and Knowing -- Linda in dungarees -- Different types of information -- Spilling milk while holding beans on toast: what things are, where things are, and how and where they go -- Views, sections and surfaces -- Summary -- 6 Space and Time -- Three-dimensional constructions: the relationship to two-dimensional work -- The ecology of creativity -- Showing more complex events in space and time -- Movement and time: changes of state and changes of position -- Sequences of events: visual narrative -- Children learn from other people's pictures -- Talking to children about how pictures work -- Many different pictures from a few drawing rules -- Education and childcare: what we can do to help -- Summary -- 7 The Origin of Literacy: Young Children Learn to Read -- B is Ben -- Starting to read and write -- Summary -- 8 Children Begin to Show Depth in their Drawings -- Looking from a particular point of view, or a variety of points of view -- Drawing a stagecoach that moves away from us -- The importance of understanding children's thinking -- Helping children get on with their drawings -- Occlusion and hidden line elimination -- Foreshortened planes -- Planes, curves and spheres -- Visual jokes: the relationship between humour and intellect -- Implications of Ben's development -- How does the study of Ben compare with studies of average drawing development? -- Autistic child artists -- Other gifted child artists -- Summary -- 9 Why Do Many Children Give Up Drawing and Painting? What Can We Do to Help? -- Did my children see me painting? -- Should one paint or draw for children? -- The importance of record-keeping -- Painting: the unfolding event -- Analysis -- Different kinds of realism -- Drawing as an interplay of forces rather than the representation of objects -- Summary.

References -- Index.