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Dan aa55a8b724 Add research doc for the Beginner level curriculum

2026-06-29 14:11:10 +00:00

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DrawIt — Research: Designing the "Beginner" Level

Researched June 2026. Purpose: figure out how a child moves from Early Beginner (simple shapes and confident lines) to genuinely more complex drawings, and map that progression onto a concrete Beginner curriculum for DrawIt. This is a research/planning document only — nothing here is built yet. It builds directly on RESEARCH-drawing-platforms-and-techniques.md, which mapped each of our five ability levels to a technique. That doc said Beginner should teach shape → form and base color; this doc fleshes out exactly what that means, why, and how.

1. Where "Beginner" sits — the developmental anchor

DrawIt's five levels (Early Beginner → Beginner → Learner → Advanced Learner → Superb) line up surprisingly well with the way children's drawing actually develops. The most widely used framework is Viktor Lowenfeld's stages of artistic development:

Lowenfeld stage	Rough age	What the child can do	DrawIt level
Pre-schematic	4–6	Circular figures, single objects floating in space, flat shapes	Early Beginner (where we are)
Schematic	7–9	Understanding of space and proportion, baselines, repeatable "symbols" for things	Beginner (this doc)
Dawning Realism	9–11	Strives for realistic look, more detail per part, overlapping objects, horizon line	Learner / Advanced

Early Beginner lives in the pre-schematic world: a fish is a flat outline, an object on its own. The leap into Beginner mirrors the move into the schematic stage — the child starts to care about space, proportion, and how parts relate, and wants their drawings to look more like the real thing. That is the single most important framing for this level: Beginner is the bridge from "flat symbol of a thing" to "a thing that has volume, parts, and believable size."

Crucially, we are not trying to reach realism here. Lowenfeld's "Dawning Realism" (true light, shadow, overlap) is the Learner level. Beginner's job is the rung in between.

2. The leap: what actually changes from Early Beginner → Beginner

Four concrete shifts define the jump in complexity. Everything in this level should serve one of these four, and each is a well-documented teaching milestone, not something we invented:

Flat shape → 3-D form. A circle becomes a sphere; a square becomes a cube; a rectangle becomes a cylinder. With just one or two added ellipses/edges a 2-D shape reads as a solid object with volume. The four basic forms — sphere, cube, cylinder, cone — are described everywhere as "the building blocks of drawing complex objects" and the foundation for creating the illusion of depth and volume.
Single shape → constructed object (combining shapes). This is "construction": breaking a complex subject into basic shapes, stacking/overlapping them, and refining into the final outline. A mug is a cylinder with an ellipse rim; a house is a box with a prism roof; a snowman is stacked spheres. Early Beginner draws one shape per subject; Beginner draws subjects made of several shapes fitted together.
Guessing size → simple proportion. The schematic-stage child begins to care that the head is the right size for the body, that the handle fits the cup. The teachable beginner skill is relative size / comparative measurement — "nail the biggest proportions first, then refine" and "compare one part to another instead of measuring in isolation." For kids this is kept concrete: light guide marks, "the body is about two heads tall," a center line for symmetry.
Line only → base color (and the first hint of light). Early Beginner already added a separate "Color it!" coloring step. Beginner makes color part of the drawing: flat base color inside the lines, an intro to primary → secondary colors, and the very first idea of a light side and a shadow side of a form (one light source) — without full shading. This is deliberately the on-ramp to the Learner shading module, so the two levels connect.

3. The technique backbone for Beginner

Rather than "just more animals," each Beginner subject should teach one of four named techniques, in roughly this order of difficulty. This gives the level a real spine.

3a. Shape → Form (the four basic forms)

Teach the child to turn the flat shapes they already know into solids:

Circle → Sphere (add a curved contour line + a round shadow): ball, orange, planet.
Square → Cube (add depth edges): box, dice, gift.
Rectangle → Cylinder (add an ellipse top/bottom): cup, can, tree trunk, log.
Triangle → Cone (add an ellipse base): ice-cream cone, party hat, traffic cone, tree.

Each form is introduced on its own (a short "make it 3-D" drill) and then immediately used in a real subject, so the technique never feels abstract. This is exactly how design-sketching courses introduce the "3 (or 4) basic forms" before any product is drawn.

3b. Construction — combining shapes into a subject

Once forms exist, teach assembly: light construction shapes first → refine into the outline → erase/ignore the guides. This is the professional "block-in" workflow simplified for kids. DrawIt's Early Beginner lessons already hint at this with the cumulative outline steps; Beginner should make it explicit and visible: step 1 is always "lay in the big shapes," and the guide shapes stay faint under the final line art (we already have a faint-guide + line-reveal mechanic in the trace runner).

Good "combine the shapes" subjects (well attested as kid-friendly construction exercises): house (box + prism), snowman (3 spheres), mug (cylinder + ellipse), ice-cream cone (cone + sphere), robot (cubes + cylinders), simple car (boxes + circles), cat curled up (circle + ovals), rocket (cylinder + cone + triangles).

3c. Proportion — relative size and placement

Keep it concrete and visual, never mathematical:

Big shapes first, details last — the most repeated rule in proportion teaching.
Compare part to part — "the head is about as wide as the body is tall," "the handle is half the cup." Show this with on-canvas guide marks rather than a ruler.
Center / symmetry lines — a vertical guide for symmetric subjects (a vase, a face-on robot).
Baseline / ground line — the schematic-stage hallmark: objects sit on something, not float.

3d. Base color & first light

Flat color inside the lines (we already have the coloring studio + fill bucket).
Primary → secondary: a tiny, playful color-mixing idea (red + yellow = orange) surfaced as a tip, since 5–9 year-olds are exactly the audience for first color theory.
Light side / shadow side: pick a light direction (a ☀️ marker), keep the side facing it lighter and the far side a touch darker — one darker tone, not a gradient. This is the gateway drug to the Learner shading module and keeps the levels continuous.

4. How step-by-step apps ramp difficulty (and what to copy)

The competitor scan reinforces the structure above:

Themed modules, each with ~5 lessons of gradually increasing difficulty (e.g., "Let's Learn How to Draw!" modules; SimplyDraw's Animals/Nature/Characters paths). We should group Beginner into a few themed packs rather than one flat list.
Skill-based ladder: ArtWorkout's published progression is literally shapes & lines → doodles & sketches → confident line work → shading, perspective, anatomy. Beginner is the "confident line work + first form/color" rung — we're aligned.
Self-check / "ready to move on?": some apps (Drawy) grade the attempt and tell the child to advance or practice more. We can do a lightweight, fully on-device version (e.g., a gentle self-rating or an optional shape-overlap check) without any data collection.
"Draw on your own" fade-out: apps gradually remove the prompts so the child eventually draws unaided. Beginner can start fading guides (e.g., the final lesson of a pack shows fewer construction hints), setting up the freer Learner/Superb levels.

Our differentiators stay intact: free, open source, zero data collection, self-hostable, tablet-first — all of the above is doable client-side with the stack we have.

5. Proposed Beginner curriculum

5a. Lesson shape — 4 phases (decided)

Early Beginner uses Outline → Detail → Color it!. Beginner adopts a 4-phase flow per subject:

Construct — lay in the basic forms/shapes (faint guides, the "make it 3-D" move). New.
Outline — refine the guides into clean line art (as today).
Color — flat base color inside the lines, with the primary/secondary tip (as today's "Color it!").
Light — add the single light/shadow side using the ☀️ marker. New, bridges to Learner.

This is backward-compatible with our model: each phase is its own lesson with its own sublevel, and the construction guides reuse the existing faint-guide + line-reveal mechanics. (Badging is now per-pack rather than per-subject — see §5b/§8.)

5b. Subjects — 3 packs, all-new, shapes-focused (decided)

Per Dan's direction: 3 packs to start, all-new subjects, focused on shapes/forms (no reuse of the Early Beginner animals — more animals will be added to Early Beginner later, separately). Each pack ramps in difficulty and earns one per-pack completion badge when all its subjects are finished.

The three packs form a clean difficulty ladder: single form → combined forms → multi-part objects.

Pack	Subject (form → themed object)	Teaches (form)	Skill focus
Pack 1 — Make it 3-D (single forms)	Beach ball	Sphere	First 2-D→3-D; round shadow
	Gift box	Cube	Depth edges; cast shadow
	Mug	Cylinder	Ellipse rim; handle proportion
	Party hat	Cone	Ellipse base; first light side
Pack 2 — Put it together (combine 2–3 forms)	Ice-cream cone	Cone + sphere	First combined form
	Snowman	Stacked spheres	Proportion (3 sizes), baseline
	House	Box + pyramid roof	Combining; symmetry line
	Rocket	Cylinder + cone + fins	Combining + simple overlap
Pack 3 — Build a thing (multi-part construction)	Robot	Cubes + cylinders	Multi-part construction
	Car	Boxes + circles	Proportion, wheels on a baseline
	Castle	Cubes + cones/pyramids	Repetition + symmetry
	Sailboat	Triangles + curved hull	Combine + color + first light

Core-form choice: the opening pack teaches the universal trio sphere, cube, cylinder (the most reusable primitives — nearly every later subject decomposes into them), with the cone added last as the bridge into combining. The pyramid is deliberately held for packs 2–3 (house roof, castle), where the lesson is combining/repeating forms rather than a first 2-D→3-D drill.

Sequencing within the level: single form → two/three combined forms → multi-part construction, each subject running the full Construct → Outline → Color → Light flow. Difficulty rises exactly the way the app research recommends (themed packs, ~4 lessons each, gradual ramp, guides fading toward the end of each pack).

Badge model (decided): per-pack completion badge. Finishing every subject in a pack earns that pack's badge (3 Beginner badges total), each with a shareable PNG + award PDF like the existing badges. (This differs from Early Beginner's per-subject badges.)

5c. Continuity — how it builds on Early Beginner and feeds Learner

Unlock gate (decided): the Beginner level stays locked until the child completes at least 5 Early Beginner items. The intent is that the Early Beginner lessons give the child the "look and feel" of how DrawIt works (the trace/line-reveal flow, coloring studio, badges, gallery) before stepping up in complexity. Implementation note for later: count completed Early Beginner subjects (or lessons) server-side, the same place we already gate phase progression, and grey out the Beginner level on the Learn page with an encouraging "finish 5 Early Beginner drawings to unlock" message until the threshold is met.
Looks back: Beginner subjects are all-new and shape-focused (no reprise of the Early Beginner animals). More animals will be added to Early Beginner later as a separate effort, so the two levels stay distinct: Early Beginner = recognizable subjects & confident line; Beginner = form, construction, proportion, base color.
Looks forward: the "light side / shadow side" phase is intentionally the simplest possible version of the Learner shading module (highlight / mid-tone / shadow, the sphere drill). A child who finishes Beginner has already met a light source and one shadow tone, so Learner is a deepening, not a brand-new idea.

6. Feature / data-model implications (for later — not building now)

Flagging what this level would need so the eventual build is scoped, consistent with the already-proposed extensions in the prior research doc:

A construct step kind (faint, non-graded guide shapes) — we already have kind on steps and a faint-guide render path; this mostly reuses it.
A base-color phase — already covered by the coloring studio + fill bucket.
A light-source overlay (☀️ marker + light/shadow side hint) — a simpler cousin of the shading zone overlay proposed for Learner.
Proportion guide marks — light center/baseline lines and "this part = half that part" hints in the construct step.
Optional on-device self-check ("ready to move on?") — purely local, no scoring sent anywhere.
Guide fade-out toward the end of each pack — a per-lesson flag to show fewer hints.

All client-side, all bundled/generated locally. No new data collection, no third-party services, still free and open source — same constraints we've held throughout.

7. Suggested phasing for the Beginner build (when we get there)

Phase A — Forms first: ship the four "make it 3-D" form drills + the four single-form subjects (ball, cup, box, cone) using the existing Outline→Color flow plus a new faint construct step.
Phase B — Construction: the "Build it" pack (snowman, house, rocket, robot) — combining shapes, proportion guides, baseline.
Phase C — Form + color + first light: the living-things pack and the optional light/shadow phase; this is the explicit hand-off into the Learner shading module.

8. Decisions (locked June 2026)

These are settled and drive the eventual build:

Phases: 4 phases per subject — Construct → Outline → Color → Light.
Packs: 3 packs to start (§5b): Make it 3-D → Put it together → Build a thing, ~4 subjects each, ramping single form → combined forms → multi-part construction.
All-new, shapes-focused subjects — no reprise of the Early Beginner animals. (More animals will be added to Early Beginner later, as a separate effort.)
Unlock gate: Beginner opens only after the child completes ≥ 5 Early Beginner items, so they get the DrawIt "look and feel" first. Beginner is greyed out with an encouraging unlock prompt until then.
Badges: per-pack completion badge (3 Beginner badges total), each with shareable PNG + award PDF — not per-subject.

Still open (smaller, can be decided at build time): whether to include a lightweight, fully on-device "ready to move on?" self-check, and the exact art direction for the 3 pack badges.

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