Here are 5 art tips for children to encourage your artistic talents.
Yes Ron Swanson, we all agree that compared to adults, most children are pretty awful artists.
In the same way, pigs are not the world’s best skateboarders, but it doesn’t mean it’s not goddamn adorable when they try:
Oh and by the way sir, I would like to see draw, or even hold a marker effectively when the bones in your hand are almost entirely cartilage:
Hand bone growth. Coloured X-ray of bone growth of the human hand at different ages (left to right): 1 year old, 3 years old, 13 years old, 20 years old. Bones are coloured blue. The infant and child hands reveal wide spaces of cartilage between each finger bone, at each joint, where bone growth and ossification (bone formation) will occur. Wrist bones appear absent in the 1 year old as they are made of cartilage; wrist bone formation has begun in the 3 year old. By 13 years ossification has occurred widely: all wrist bones are seen, and the spaces between finger joints have narrowed. In the 20 year old hand, all bone joints have closed.
Hey Rembrandt, try and paint a masterpiece wearing an oven mitt and you’ll know what your kid is going through.. Now that we’ve shamed Ron Swanson, let’s get down to business. With the amount of art that your kid is bringing home from daycare and school, wouldn’t you love it if one piece, just one goddamn piece, was actually aesthetically pleasing? Well I’ve got some tips for you that might make that possible.
- Art Hub for Kids – This channel, run by an artist named Ron Jensen, is absolutely awesome. You come off Twitter or Instagram and start to think that we’d actually be much better off as a society if the internet did not exist AND THEN you see this YouTube channel and feel better about the world. Ron and family have posted hundreds of How to Draw videos that are put together in a way that even my 4 year old can follow along and draw. As an adult who’s not a great artist, it’s fun to draw along with my daughter. She loves it and it’s quality together that isn’t us both laughing along to Bluey. I just drew this sick unicorn and then put it on the fridge. It would have looked like a snake with a perm without Ron. I cannot recommend this channel enough!
- Try, Try Again – Adam Grant, in his book Think Again, relayed a really interesting story about an exercise from a first grade classroom (video below). To sum it up, a first grade boy drew a butterfly using a picture of the insect. Then, as an exercise with a group of his peers, there was a discussion about how the butterfly he drew was different from the picture. He then redrew the butterfly 5 additional times and after each effort he had the same discussion with his peers. This was the mind-blowing result
More detailed video on mind-blowing result. Maybe Austin is baby-Rembrandt, but it’s more likely that this skill is buried somewhere in all of our children, if we’re willing (and they’re willing) to spend the time to dig it out. I like the lesson here that our first effort, good or bad, is just a starting point. It’s like the first time your kid sees a tiny-gymnast at the park turn an expert cart-wheel. Inevitably their first effort is a head first dive into the grass. They cry because “I CAN’T DO IT!!!” Of course you can’t, you’ve never tried a cartwheel before 9 seconds ago. The butterfly drawing is a good example that practice, and focused practice in particular, can take the novice to the expert more quickly than we might imagine.
- Draw her favorite characters and track progress over a few months using the same sketch book (Try this adorable unicorn one) – We’ve got a fun project, still in the infancy stages, where my daughter draws her favorite character from Bluey, Bingo. She’s got her very own Bingo sketchbook for this purpose. Each month we’ll go to the sketchbook, turn the page and draw a new Bingo. She’ll see how much better she’s getting each month and hopefully this show of progress provides confidence to keep going.
- Get your Marker game on Point – Bank a Target/Amazon gift card or two and go hog wild on markers (great value here), colored pencils, crayons and a nice sketchpad. It sounds simple, but just having nice-ish supplies makes my daughter really excited about drawing. It’s a lot like how shitty golfers who have nice clubs tend to give you tips about how to fix your slice. You just hit the drink cart girl and she’s bleeding and now you’re going to tell me to slow down my backswing? However it works for that guy, it works for my daughter. She’s jacked to color once I hand her the new pack of glitter markers.
- Submit your child’s art – Does your child get Zootles or Ranger Rick magazine? If not, they should because it’s awesome and I just learned a shit ton about rabbits. Each month they encourage readers to draw a picture of an animal they learned about in the magazine. You can then submit those drawings to the ZooWork art contest and they’ll post your child’s picture on their website. My daughter’s picture of a tiger was posted this month. It’s an incredible achievement that’s probably conferred on any child who submits a picture. That said, she was extremely excited to see her picture online and told everyone she knows.
These tips have worked for me. I would love to hear in the comments what worked in your quest to raise the next Banksy.
Chris Jordan