Before I give you some practical suggestions about what kind of art materials to use and how to set them up, let me just take a few moments to talk about why it’s important to encourage this kind of activity.

There is something so soothing about drawing, doodling, coloring, and just messing about with paint and paper. Even toddlers under two seem to enjoy making marks on a piece of paper. Drawing with a felt marker, just making swoops and circles and squiggles on a page is fun and exciting. As children grow older, their visual art expression changes and becomes more representational and more complex. This is important to encourage. Not because the end goal is to create a famous visual artist but because the skills involved in drawing and painting carry over into other fields and will help your child’s overall intellectual and emotional development.

In order for a child to draw a cat, a child needs to see the cat, needs to look at what exactly defines what a cat is. Most of this is done very subconsciously and as time goes by a child’s drawing changes in keeping with their ability to absorb and sort information. When a 3 year old child draws a cat, it may be a drawing of a head that’s very large, a small body, a tail and more than likely a varying number of legs, or different size legs. As the child grows older, his or her drawings change and a cat now has a head complete with ears, whiskers, a nose, and eyes in proportion to a body with four legs and a tail. As the child continues to grow older, this cat may now acquire a defined style of fur, a more realistic color and claws and pads on its feet.

One of the things that we did to encourage our children to observe things was to set something in the middle of the kitchen table and then try to draw it. My husband and I would do this with our children whenever we could. We also encouraged them to draw things they saw outside or at various places we went. I enjoyed it as much as the children. I remember drawing some strawberry plants growing beside a stump as I sat outside watching my children playing in our sandbox. I drew for about 15 minutes and became much more aware of just what strawberry leaves look like. The children were finished in the sandbox and moved on to something else and I followed them. Later that same day my two youngest children were playing in the sand again, so I thought I could complete my drawing. I was so surprised to see how much the strawberry plants had changed since the morning. The leaves had moved to follow the sun and the plant I had been drawing now looked entirely different. I was really surprised.

I knew that plants were responsive to sunlight. I had seen flowers open and close in response to dawn and dusk, but I had never been so aware of the individual parts of a plant moving in response to the way sunlight traveled. It was a tremendous eye opener for me because I observed it for myself. I had been taught this information but it had never meant very much to me. Now I know that while plants don’t move from one location to another, all day long they are doing a dance in place as they respond to light. It expanded my view of the world and how it works.

I don’t know if my children saw new things or had new insights as they drew. I am sure they looked closely at whatever they were drawing because of the detail their drawings or paintings had. I also enjoyed seeing how much they enjoyed drawing and painting. It was not something they had to do, instead they would choose to do it. I offered suggestions about how to draw something when asked and made it clear that I was not an expert at drawing. We experimented together. Some of the things we enjoyed drawing were boots, shoes, tools, animal specimens, toys, plants, etc. Sometimes we copied illustrations from favorite books.

As well as drawing from real objects, I encouraged our children to draw and paint from their imaginations. They loved doing this as well. As they grew older, they would often spend hours creating elaborate drawings and paintings. When they were young, they created many pictures in a short amount of time. As they grew older, they would spend more time on each creation. I used large accordion type folders for storing their artwork after it had spent time on the fridge or on the cupboards and walls.

One of the best tips I read when I first started setting up our easel was to mix powdered detergent with the powdered tempera. This made it easier to wash any spilled paint out of clothes. Even though they wore smocks, sometimes paint got through and on to their clothes. Paint boxes were another popular item and also large blocks of tempera. I used lids from yogurt and cottage cheese containers to hold these tempera blocks. I used the bottom parts of yogurt containers for water dishes. The kitchen table was often the scene of our creativity. I spread newspapers all over the table and then laid the paper that was going to be painted on, on top. I’d change water as it got dirty. You can often buy paints and brushes on sale. It’s also fun to use things like used toothbrushes and other brushes such as old make-up brushes or cleaning brushes to paint with.

You can get scraps of paper from printers. They are called offcuts and are often available if you ask. You may be put on a waiting list.

We used 8.5? x 11? photocopy paper and larger sizes for painting and drawing. Buy the best paper you can afford and have lots of it. Sketchbooks are also a great way for a child to keep their drawings all in one place.

I used to keep a pad of paper and a package of pens in the car so that my children could entertain themselves on errands. You can make your child a little travel pack with a small binder that holds paper, add a pouch and fill it with 5-8 markers, crayons, pencils, and/or even a pair of scissors. You may also want to include a roll of tape. If you keep something like this in the car, then your children have something to do when you get stuck in traffic or just on normal everyday errands. I made one for each child and kept them in the car. They were worth their weight in gold.

Marty Layne is the mother of four young adults (15 -24) who have never gone to school. She is a sought after conference speaker/presenter and is the author of Learning At Home: A Mother’s Guide To Homeschooling, Revised Edition. Both her book and children’s music CD ?Brighten The Day? - songs to celebrate the seasons can be ordered from: http://members.home.net/seachangepublications/

Sea Change Publications
1850 San Lorenzo Ave.
Victoria, BC V8N 2E9 Canada

Marty Layne

http://members.home.net/seachangepublications/ Learning At Home: A Mother’s Guide To Homeschooling, Revised Edition ?It may well be the best book on parenting I have ever read.? Diane Flynn-Keith, Homefires

Brighten the Day - songs to celebrate the seasons (CD) - ?A happy, joyful recording? Helen Hegener, Home Education Magazine