My kids' Art

Drawing and Colouring
By the way, my kids did their drawings and colouring on the floor. Not very good. Try to get a proper table so that they can sit upright. The doodling sessions just take place anytime and anywhere, as and when my kids want to do it. Especially for my second child, Cinderella, (I called my kids based on fairy tales characters), I just let her be and she will experiment it with pens and colour pencils.

                  This is a drawing done by my Snow hite after a few months of coaching her. Not too bad!





Personalised Drawing Lesson-1
 As for my eldest child, Snow White, who is more mature, I tried drawing and colouring with colour pencils when she turned 4 this year. I would draw a picture . First by using shapes. I do not have a proper education in Art, but I have heard alot from art teachers who would start teaching by introducing them to shapes. I would teach Snow White how to draw the  head --a circle, the body-a rectangle for male and triangle for female(skirt). Along the way, I tried to reinforce by buying games that can reinforce not only her Math skills, motor skills but Art skills as well. Just look below the game set that I bought for her :

                                                Both my kids enjoy this activitiy very much.

                                 The activity is taken from 'Mighty Mind' . Heard from one mummy at a  book             fair who bought one set for her child and came back to buy another advance set. I have no regrets buying it. Costly though.


Some of the early drawings focused a lot on circles. As you can see below. This is achieved after some teaching.

Finally , you see something like below:

Once started, I noticed that Snow White tends to draw everything related to it. That means, to her, everything has a human face! Take a look at the pictures that she drew (in April 2010) when asked by her teacher how a potato and sun should look like.

3 months later (in July), Snow White is able to 'see' different objects and draw how the objects should look like. See the pictures below on what she likes and dislikes when asked by her childcare teacher.

                                            Snow White likes flowers, a cat ?

                                          Snow White's dislikes. 

 

Personalised Drawing Lesson-2
It took quite a few sessions to actually see the drawing of a girl from her (a bit distorted but recognisable)After drawing, next will be colouring. I taught Snow White to outline the shapes using colour pencils first and then filling in the centre. Most kids should be excited about colouring. Both my kids are. Snow White was very happy after learning how to draw. I was even happier to see her achievement. As for Colouring,she enjoys it very much. Somehow, it was not good or perhaps I was too ambitious and impatient, she just did not get it right. So I 'dumped' colouring  and started with painting. 

Below are some of Snow White's early colouring when she was 3 years old:

        Snow White's teacher commented that my child's favourite alphabet is letter 'C' .On this page, Snow White drew a caterpillar and said, 'The caterpillar is hungry.'                                   

                                          This is an 'OK' piece after much teaching.

                                         This piece was done in school all by herself.

                                         She is making an effort not to colour out of the picture
                                         for each picture that she is concentrating on.

                                       

                                                                               

                                             A female drawn and coloured by Snow White.    

 Painting
When comes to painting, I purchased a box of paints and brushes and prepared some rags and an empty container. I allowed Cinderella to play with paints but not using her fingers. She was quite happy to hold a brush and dip the brush into the paint and then start her doodling. For Snow White, she insisted that I drew a picture for her, so I would draw a house, a big apple, a cat, a flower and let her paint. I did not particularly focus on the colour scheme. She ever painted a face blue.
Instead, I just taught her to be careful and colour within the given space.

On the floor and painting, the palette of paint bought for my children. I thought it would be easier to use, just dip in water and paint. It has turned very yucky!

                                           

Art For kids Now --frankly speaking is dedicated to my 3 little daughters. I have chosen to focus on the artistic aspect of their growing up because I believe every child will fall in love with Art once we have exposed them to the various forms. Art is FUN because it is about PLAY, and in the process, Kids learn , so it is EDUCATIONAL and while playing, Kids do think and hence, we bring out the CREATIVITY in kids. Last but not least, perhaps, Art is also an avenue to satisfy our Kid's EMOTIONAL NEEDS.

Preparing The Space And Materials
To start off, I think there is no need to specially prepare a room to do ART! It can be your living room, garden or even the kitchen if you prefer. Personally I allow my kids to do their art in the living room because it is the most spacious in the whole house. However, you do need to prepare some materials-sometimes you have to make them, buy them, collect them etc. I bought papers, paints, pencils, erasers, colour pencils for a start. These materials , I thought , are the most basic.


Finger Painting And Doodling
Frankly speaking, if you do send your kids to childcare centres, you will notice that their first exposure to ART is very likely to be finger painting! I can definietly see their nails stained with paints that I have to wash their hands a few times when they reached home. Since my two older kids(4 years old and 2.5 years old) are exposed to finger painting in school and I do not wish to buy any, (finger paints came in  big bottles, costing more than $10) so I thought of allowing my kids to doodle first. That means, all you need is a piece of paper and a pencil! One of my friends went a bit further by pasting big mahjong papers on the walls and let her child doodle, once the papers are filled, she will replace new ones again.