A sample of 1186 children from 3 to 11 years had to draw a cylinder in one of three different conditions: (1) cylinder lying on its side; (2) cylinder standing up; (3) cylinder freely manipulated by the child. A typology of the drawings is presented which corresponds with an age‐related change. Initially, children produce holistic units, as yet unanalysed. Then a double process is manifest: first, children tend to decompose the units into meaningful subparts in order to encode more information; then the next step consists in re‐composing, from those independent parts, a larger, integrated unit. It is argued that the process of hidden line elimination implies the achievement of this double process: in order for a non‐visible line to be eliminated, it must be considered as a meaningful unit integrated into a larger one. The different experimental conditions led the children to focus on different aspects of its properties thus hindering or facilitating the achievement of the pr