The Meaningful Scribbles Project

We’re creating a series of photo galleries here at Playvolution HQ, highlighting the development of children’s drawing/writing from the time they can first hold a crayon until the age of eight or nine years. We want to highlight how random scribbles develop month-by-month into recognizable images and words. This collection of images will be a valuable resource for parents and caregivers. (Hat tip to the work and memory of Rhoda Kellogg, author of Analyzing Children’s Art.)

We’ve published preliminary galleries here if you want to take a look.

We’d like to collect a few thousand more images. You can submit images via the button below.

Here are some details:

We’re looking for

• Drawings that children have done on their own. (We’re not looking for creations that were the result of an assignment or made specifically for this project.)
• Drawings done in pencil, crayon, marker, or pen. (If this project is successful, we’ll do another one where we collect mixed-media creations involving gluing, paint, scissors, etc.)
• Drawings where the child’s exact age in months at the time of creation is known. (A major component of the project is to accurately represent children’s abilities at specific ages. Images done weeks or years in the past are welcome as long as you’re sure of the child’s age when created.)
• Drawings that we have permission to use and share online and in presentations. We need permission from the photographer to use the photo and expect that the photographer has any other permissions necessary before sharing it for use in this project. (The photographer still maintains copyright.)

Meaningful Scribbles Project Photo Quality

We’re looking for the clearest, highest-resolution pictures of the children’s creations possible because such images will offer the best viewing experience and show the most detail. Here are some examples:

File Formats

We can accept .jpg, .jpeg, and .png file formats. High resolution images are preferred.

Meaningful Scribbles Project Submission Process

The process is pretty simple. Click the button below to open the submission form. We ask for some basic info about the submitter and provide a photo upload portal. You can upload up to 15 images per submission, and you can make as many submissions as you like.

Sharing Is Important

Help the Meaningful Scribbles Project along by sharing this article with people who may be willing and able to submit images. The only way it succeeds is if enough interested folks know about it. And sharing is easy, scroll down to the share buttons below the submission form.

Thoughts, Comments, and Questions Welcome

Share thoughts and comments or ask questions about the project below.

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