
Facilitating art with young children - part 1
Like all skills, children's abilities in creative subjects develops at different times. Just like when they walk, talk and potty train varies so does the ability to sit still, concentrate on one things for a period of time, hold a pencil/brush and focus for an hour. In my classes I teach Scottish p3-p6, p7-S4. Prior to P3/4 I find that they are not able to sit for an hour to draw and need something else after a short time. Rather than a lesson, they just need the time and space to do their own thing, and someone to encourage and question them - something that parents can do as well as I can.
I know many parents don't think they are very creative, and when they see some creativity and love of drawing in their own children are keen to find someone who is "good at art" to help them. However, at primary age, contrary to many parent's belief, parents have a lot that they can offer. Most of it at this age is facilitation and validation. I know from talking to parents, that many don't have ideas of what they can do with their children that isn't 'messy' as they envisage paint all over their house.
So heres a few tips - apologies if it's a bit unstructured but I am writing it as I think...
First, I would say that rather than spending money on art lessons for a 4/5/6 year old - I would spend that money on decent quality materials and invest in a waterproof tablecloth for when they do art.
DRAWING:
Drawing is a nice "clean" activity for children and can encompass many areas. The better quality materials mean that they are more satisfied with the outcome of their work, which can help with confidence.
Felt tip - Children of this age love felt tips. Try to get decent fat felt tips that don't dry up at first go. Teach children that lids need to go back on felt tips or they stop working. I would start with a normal set of felt tips, then add sparkly ones, metallic ones, pastel ones - as and when they need new ones. I often have a mix of types of felt tips for them - they love a sparkly felt tip. Metal or plastic biscuit or chocolate tins work well for keeping them in.
Crayons - you can get nicer crayons or cheap oil pastels for children. The really cheap crayons are more wax than anything else and don't give such good colours. Cheap oil pastels are often better than crayons if they are wanting to do some bright colours.
Graphite Pencils - you can get a mix of HB, 2B and 4B pencils in a set - they can learn the difference between the types of pencil by drawing lines and zig zags and spirals. they love a tin of pencils - anything that looks like "real artist" pencils. Small children are often happy if you just draw spirals, circles, squares with them. Even just squares that you then colour in.
Coloured Pencils - I would recommend getting better quality pencils if you can. The cheaper ones aren't such good colours, and are often so hard that they don't really give much colour. If you go for more expensive artist pencils - they are much richer colours and are more satisfying. You don't need top of the range ones - just ones that are not aimed at children.
I would avoid those big sets of crayons pencils etc too. They are usually a bit rubbish and you're better off going to somewhere like Cass Arts, Edinburgh Greyfriars Art Shop, or even The Works to get sets of the individual item. You can get a small plastic tool box to put them in. If you would like advice on particular types - drop me a message and I'm happy to recommend some.
Younger children tend to produce many pictures in one sitting - all quick drawings. They aren't at the age yet that they need instruction on how to draw. It's just as important that they exploring different materials and have fun with line and colour, so you don't need art trainign for that. So have plenty of paper available for many many drawings - printer paper is as good as any.
Some need prompts of what to draw, others will have plenty of ideas themselves. I often start sessions with young children with a picture story book. We look at the pictures in the book - look at the colours used, the size of the pictures, the lines used and use that as a starting point for a drawing. Children's book illustrators are a really good way for them to see lots of "art" without needing to go to a gallery.
Younger children can sometimes get frustrated that they can't make things look like the thing they want to represent. A nice easy way for them to produce the shape is to draw round items. Drawing round things is developing their dexterity and skills at looking at shapes. You can encourage them to draw round their toys, kitchen utensils, their shows, their wellies, their hands & feet. They can then colour them in, draw patterns in them, draw in different colours, different materials.
Collage is also good for this age. Find some old magazine and some children's scissors - let them cut things out (another good dexterity skill to learn) and then use a push up stick of glue to stick them on a picture. They can then draw on the picture too with pencils, felt tips and oil pastels.
Rubbings - children love rubbings. Whether it's on trees, one bubblewrap, corrugated cardboard. You just need crayons/oil pastels/ pencils and some paper. It's fun to go on a walk and see what things you can find to lay the paper on top of and rub to find the textures and surfaces.
Rainbows - children of this age love to be able to draw rainbows - you can look up the colours of rainbows online. And they don't have to be arches - you can do a long line of colours. Draw a big long scarf and make it a rainbow scarf. Draw an animal and make a rainbow animal. Draw round a wooden spoon and make it a rainbow wooden spoon.
If you're stuck with what to do with all their artwork - you can put up a string somewhere and peg their work to it. When it gets full, spend time with them talking about whch ones they like best and want to keep up on the line and which can now be recycled. The ones they and you love best can then be photographed to keep a record of them and then recycled too.
I hope that's helpful as a stater, I'll add more to this soon.