Recent studies have revealed that 5-year-old children can be induced to produce visually realistic drawings, either by manipulating the nature of the model which is being drawn, or by turning the drawing task into a communicative game. However, it has also been found that 5-year-olds cannot be induced to produce visually realistic drawings merely because they have been given highly explicit verbal instructions to do so. The present paper reports two experiments, both involving 160 subjects, which were designed to explore this matter further. The first experiment, which required that subjects draw either two balls or one cup, indicated that, contrary to previous findings, explicit instructions can sometimes elicit visually realistic drawings from 5-year-old children. The second experiment, which required children to draw two balls, indicated that it is the content rather than the length of the explicit instructions which induces children to produce visually realistic drawings. (Author/RH)