Drawing for kids is a loaded topic. At least for me it was.

Do we teach kids HOW to draw or do we let them learn it on their own?

I found an old  interview on The Artful Parent blog the other day that brought up lots of my old conflicts with teaching children to draw or not.

The interview was with the creator of The Anti Coloring books,  Susan Striker  and in this interview she discusses   not teaching children to draw but allowing them to draw as they develop on their own.

Now, this was something that I had been taught many years ago when I went to The Bank Street college of Education. Bank Street is a very progressive graduate school and a children’s school, where there is NO crafts done and the children are never taught to draw but just allowed to develop on their own.

And I thought this was the holy grail, until I started reading two books that have made tremendous gains in this area of teaching not just children but adults to draw, and totally changed my way of thinking.

I think the problem had always been that most drawing classes and books  teach children, how to draw things. A cup, animals, houses etc.

The difference that I discovered with these two methods is that they are teaching children “to see” and to learn how to draw what they see and change what they see into their own interpertations.

The first  method is the very well known, cutting edge The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards.

The second  book I’ve been reading is Drawing with Children by Mona Brooks, where she teaches what she calls The Monart Method

Both  Edwards and Brooks did  their own research on the topics  of  drawing,  and came up with similar conclusions.

One of the main conclusions was that the same way children need instruction to learn how to  read  properly, they will also not learn to draw without instruction.

Isn’t drawing an inborn talent?

Yes! To a certain extent.

It is true that highly talented individuals will be able to draw without instruction, HOWEVER, the claims of both Betty Edwards and Mona Brooks is That ANYONE can learn how to draw even those who feel they really can’t draw a straight line.

Berry Edwards who really started this whole concept has a gallery of drawings of adults. This gallery is a before and after montage. the drawings they made before taking the class and after starting it.

It is awe inspiring.

Betty Edwards however deals mostly with adults and says that her methods can only be applied to children 10 and over.

She teaches 5 basic skills that people need to know and all is basically teaching people to SEE.

She starts with contour drawing, goes on to negative space etc. You can read more about it in her book The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain .

But What about little kids drawing?

That’s where Mona Brooks comes in. (even though I do believe that even young children can use some of Betty Edwards techniques)

Mona Brooks  of the famous Monart method, on the other hand, bases her method on children learning to see the world through 5 basic elements of shape.

She does address the issue we spoke about earlier about children being allowed to draw without instruction and claims, that children need both types of drawing.

This quieted my soul when I realized that there is a place for both.

SO even though I am a real Bank Street person who believes greatly in the child developmental theories of  education and art, one cant argue with the evidence and I realized that there is definite benefit to children getting specific instruction in drawing from f these methods.

HOWEVER

You do need to have someone giving instruction to children in a physical setting. so that is not something this blog can do, as I am here and you are there.

But there is something I can address.

Not everyone can give children these classes based on the books and not everyone has classes to send children to and that’s where I come in.

I am going to address that age old question of children….

But what should I draw?

Are you as sick as I am of rainbows, hearts and the house with the white picket fence with smoke coming out of the chimney?

If so then stick with me.

I will be taking many of the ideas and activities from the Monart method, Betty Edwards method, another book by a woman named Mia Johnson, called Teach Your Children to Draw and any other resources I can get my hands on.

There are many, many drawing exercises and activities that can help children in their skills and art of seeing that will free up their creativity and even prepare them for future drawing lessons.

If you can I definitely recommend you read those books, but if not you can follow along here and see what I can dig up.

I’m real excited about this journey and if you have any ideas you’d like me to cover (if I haven’t yet when you are reading this) then just let me know in the comments section.

And who knows maybe you yourself will get inspired to learn to draw along with your charges.

My hope is that with all of the ideas and motivations I will be giving youin this eries you will never hear that from children again.

Crafts with paper plates is probably pretty popular. Which parent or educator hasn’t whipped out those paper plates for some quickly art project when stuck without proper art supplies.

Using paper plates for a craft project is actually a way to get children out of the box of thinking that one only needs real paper to make a project.

Not everyone uses paper plates  when wanting to use throw away plates.

Some of you may use plastic or even Styrofoam.

So for clarification, these activities are for REAL paper plates.

Of course the children have to know that its only for this activity and not to be used indiscriminately.

Spiral cutouts. Have the children color both sides of the paper plates.  If the children you are giving this activity to are little girls who can color endlessly then they will have no problem covering the entire plate on both sides with crayon. You may want to give the children the option of using washable makers.

Give them the thicker ones as the thinner ones take too long to cover space. If you encourage them to cover both sides, their spiral cutouts will be more colorful. But of course whatever they do is fine.Once their plates are all colored, you can give them scissors and have them start cutting around and around the paper plate in a spiral.

Younger children may need you to draw the spiral with a pencil so that they can follow. Once they are done they can see these spiral cutouts for mobile or decorations.

Paper plate Collage is another idea to use paper plates for.

The plates can be used as a background for a collaging activity.

You can give the children circles to collage with to introduce them to that shape it may be interesting to see how they collage with circles onto their round plates.

Paper Plate Masks.

There are many holidays that children can make masks for. I would cut out holes of eyes before they decorate the masks and then have the children decorate the masks with various materials you have around the house.

Feathers, cotton balls, sequins, buttons are all good materials that can help the mask come to life. You can of course add markers to help them finish it off. When they are done you will need to staple elastic to the sides so the children can actually wear them.

Making masks is actually what I call a cafeteria style activity in my course “Learning through Crafts” The complete multi media guide to Educational Arts and crafts for kids.

Just make sure that after the children color, collage or paint on these plates that they don’t use them for eating on. the art materials may be toxic.

Easy crafts you want? Well this doesn’t get too much easier.

If you are an instant coffee drinker than you may not have any of these coffee filters on hand but they are easily purchased.

This first activity to do with these large, soft filters works best with eye droppers.

If you don’t have any  old medications that come in bottles with droppers then I believe you may be able to purchase these from your local pharmacist

Prepare small bits of water with a different color food coloring in each bit of water.

You may want to use egg box cartons for the different colors. Lay the coffee filters out and using the eye droppers  have the children take different colors and drip them randomly onto the spread out filters.

This will create beautiful soft patterns of color on the filters. The nature of the coffee filters has the liquid spreading out and making different designs.

After they have created  as many colors as they like (or you give them)  the children can paste these filters onto a pieces of tag board. (after they dry)

They can even cut around the designs and use the cutouts to paste with.

The coffee filters can be used along with cupcake holders, pom poms,strips of paper, pieces of aluminum foil etc to create beautiful flower collages on a piece of tag board.

Another thing to do with coffee filters is to allow the children to cut them  up .

Why not just allow the children to snip around the edges of the coffee filters or let them cut them into pieces.

You can then  use washable markers that bleed and have them  color on the filters, then cut them and paste what they cut.

Simple and fun and gives credibility to your coffee habit. (if you have one)

Different hues

Do you compliment your child’s artwork? (I’m sure you do)

Do you tell them how beautiful it is?Is that a good thing?

There are so many ways to help a child grow through his or her artwork.Believe it or not one of the best ways to do that  is by how we react to our children’s artwork.

The formula for relating to a child’s artwork is quite simple but let me begin by describing the 4 types of comments that are not valuable.  I will then give you 6 ways to react and then put those comments into action with the artwork displayed here.

There are 4 ways that most adults relate to children’s artwork.

COMPLIMENTING: “That’s beautiful…” “That’s very good…” etc. Of course, we all do this and think we are doing what is best for the child.

However, telling a child their work is beautiful all of the time is overused and pat. They are compliments that lack sincerity and really don’t address the child’s efforts. A child may well begin to wonder how it is that his representational man and his sister’s scribbles elicit the same reaction, and will begin doubting your sincerity.

VALUING: “I like that”.  Children’s art should not be done to please adults. This shows a value for the product over the process.

QUESTIONING: “What is that?” Many young children who are just making scribbles and free art  cannot verbalize what they have made or are not even ready to make representational drawings. Unless they are making a predetermined project it is best to just ask them to tell you a bout it.

CORRECTING: If the point of educational arts is to  have the child do art according to his/her level, it would not be appropriate to guide them to do things a “right” way.

So what is the right way to react to children’s art?

The answer is that basically in a nutshell…..

Notice that artwork but really notice it and comment on it. That’s it.

To help you out with this seemingly overly simplistic concept I have  listed 6  attributes of artwork that  you can comment on and we will then relate those comments to some of the images we have here.

1. Color
   
2. Space used
3. Lines and how many
4. Amount of materials used
5. Pattern and placement
6. Use of paintbrush or other materials

Comments  like “Oh I see you used 3 colors” or “You left alot of space around that shape you make” does a few things.

1. It makes the child feel like you really notice what they did.
2. It makes the child start to  think themselves about what they did.
3. It gives real importance to the artwork.
4. It makes the child feel good about herself.

As an example, this is what I would say about the painting above. In this case the child was actually creating different hues of primary colors so I can comment on that “Oh! I see you found 4 shades out of the yellow and even more out of the red” OR “Isn’t it amazing how one color can look so different. Can you tell me what you did to get so many reds?”

Or about the next picture

” I  see you decided to make 2 flowers. You used one large pom pom for the middle and 4 small pom poms for the inside of the second flower”
Or What about this one

A child's painting

” I see you used very soft colors. You made some yellow and orange shapes in the middles and then you put some curvy lines around those shapes. I could tell you were moving your wrist around alot when you were making this painting”

The point is for you to STOP and really notice what the child did and comment on it.

Now of course you don’t have to go crazy with and think that if you tell your child once in a while that their picture is beautiful, they will  be damaged  ro life and you will have to pick up the pieces of their life. (lol)

The point here  is just to help you understand the best ways to react to children’s artwork in the most developmentally appropriate manner.

No one is perfect (except maybe you) and we don’t bat 100% all the time.

Happy commenting and below is a short video with me commenting on some kids artwork as an example.

Process only art art for kids is exactly what it says. It is for the process only and does not take the end product into account.

The point of process only activities, as many of you may very well know is to explore the process of the art activity itself without worrying about the end product.

This particular series is going to explore the different art materials that children often come across and see what kind of experiences  we can give the children using these particular materials.

Pure art and exploration will be the key.

Let them leran the materials and how they can use them.

You can of course combine any of these processes only art activities into an educational arts and crafts projects but that’s not what this series is for.

The material of this post is chalk. below are  7 simple activities that you can do with  even very young children.

1. Use it outside as it says, it’s sidewalk chalk. Get hold of the thick, colorful pieces of chalk often called sidewalk chalk that have lots of colors included. The chalk often comes in a bucket. On a nice day allow the children to go outdoors and color all over the asphalt, sidewalk or any other area that will be easily cleaned up, either by rain or by hosing down with a garden hose.
2. Transfer chalk drawings to paper: If the children express an interest in saving some of their chalk drawings or even if they don’t you can offer them paper to color on with the chalk .  Black or other dark construction paper is often more striking than plain manila or white. Once the children  are done you will need to spray the drawings with hairspray as this helps set the chalk.  It is very important that you only use the hairspray outdoors and do not let the children do it. The spraying should be for adults only.
3. Create a solution of 1/3 c. sugar to 1 cup water. Have the children dip their pieces of chalk into this solution before drawing with the chalk on their papers. This helps brighten the chalk colors and will also help reduce smearing.Using hairspray will work with this activity also.
4. This time around, make the paper wet first and then give the children dry chalk. Have them  use dry chalk on wet paper. You can experiment by giving he children different types of paper wetting each of them before drawing. The best way to make the paper wet is to fill up a rectangular basin with water and lift the papers in and out of it.
5. Instead of making the paper wet with water, give the children paintbrushes and liquid  starch and have them paint the paper with the liquid starch.Use the chalk to color over the paper with the starch on it. (This also brighten chalk colors and helps reduce smudging.)
6. Sand art: Chalk is great for creating sand art. The children can be given a hand grater and along with an adults careful supervision grate the different color chalk into separate bowls. Once you have enough chalk you can do 2 different types of sand art. Firstly you have  the children use a paintbrush and paint some glueonto a  blank sheet of paper. They can then take different colors chalk and sprinkle them where they want to crate a beautiful sand art. They can get really creative by making various shapes and borders with their glue.
7. A second sand art activity is to give children small jars and arrange the different colored chalk in layers to create a sand art bottle. Just be aware that you need alot more sand (chalk) for this  sand art activity that you do for the first.

If the kids get really into making sand art you can check a really cool website that is dedicated to sand art castles

There are many different types of sidewalk chalk
you can get that will give your children hours of fun.

If you want to get really ambitious I found someone who makes homemade sidewalk chalk.