Easy, Fun Ways To Get Your Kid Excited About Art

(Featured finger painting image above courtesy of my five-year-old daughter, Violet!)

Do you want to go beyond coloring books and paint-by-number kits with your kids so they can become creative, inventive individuals? Are you trying to figure out ways to encourage original thinking and resourcefulness? Read ahead for some tips I’ve found useful over the years in exploring art with my daughter and other children.

Emphasize Process, Not Product

The best way to teach your kids about art and creativity is to let them enjoy the process without worrying about the final product. Craft kits are cute and fine for rainy days, but how about some undirected, messy exploration time so your kids can make their own surprising discoveries about what happens when they use materials in new and unexpected ways? Throw some newspapers on the kitchen floor and let them go to town with finger paints.  Or cook up a batch of homemade play dough—a great process in and of itself—and let your kid explore the squishy texture and shapes.

My favorite kid art resources that emphasize process:

• Artful Parent blog (embed link: http://artfulparent.com/): A beautiful blog by mom Jean Van’t Hul, who is committed to including art in her childrens’ lives daily. Her website has a wealth of ideas for kids to explore textures, colors, shapes and more.
• Any of MaryAnn Kohl’s books: She is a gifted art educator dedicated to making sure that children engage in the process of creativity. The woman even has an entire book comprised of different play dough recipes broken down by the desired characteristic (ie, baked dough, air-dried)! Also make sure to check out her series of books called “It’s the Process, Not the Product!” directed at various age groups.

“Kids Need Too Much”

When my daughter was a baby, I attended a lecture on the process of children’s art making. Four years later, what I most remember is the presenter telling us that “kids need too much” in order to have the freedom to explore and create. In other words, don’t be precious or stingy with art supplies. Instead of buying the expensive watercolor paper that you dole out one sheet at a time, buy a ream of cheap office paper that is always available for scribbles and sketches. Keep a jar filled with a million buttons for sculptures and a bowl of inexpensive beads handy for collages. Remember how fast tiny minds buzz with ideas and how much crazy energy burns through those little bodies at any one time! Kids need to be able to freely try out lots of concepts and techniques without worrying that mom or dad will yell at them for wasting supplies.

Find what your child loves and go for it

It’s tempting to want to give your kid an art lesson on Rembrandt and Van Gogh as you drag him or her through the art museum, but first ask yourself, what does she love? What does he respond to?

• If your girl is into building machines, how about taking her to see an exhibit on Paul Klee’s kinetic sculptures or Leonardo’s Machines in Motions?
• If your boy goes crazy for bright colors, how about checking out a library book on Keith Haring, Andy Warhol or Roy Lichtenstein?
• Embrace your daughter’s obsession with princesses by showing her portraits of real women who were larger than life, like Joan of Arc, Anne Boleyn and Queen Victoria.
• Is your child constantly writing all over your walls? Check out local murals in your area with your little one, then tape up some large butcher block paper or newspapers on the walls at home and let him go to town (with supervision, of course!)

Sometimes it’s hard to just let kids play without direction in what seems like disorganized anarchy; I am certainly guilty of the occasional reprimand directed at my daughter to “not make such a mess” or “don’t waste so much.” I usually catch myself, though, and realize that her chaos isn’t really mess or waste, but a chance for her little mind to explore, observe, and learn from the great mysteries found in the process of making art. I, too, am a work in progress!