Teach Art to Your Children v 3.0

Welcome to my weekly segment about teaching art to children. If you're joining me for the first time, there are a lot of ideas outlined here with the goal in mind for you to spend quality time with your child and to encourage their creativity. These ideas can be adapted to fit any skill level. Read through the lessons and see how you can adapt them to suit your child. I also mention supplies in a lot of these articles and you will realize you can achieve the same results with various supplies, so check though your craft closet and see what you can do.

This week, I decided to teach the children how to use watercolor paints. The 6 year olds are starting to really become much more advanced than they have been with staying inside lines and using supplies in general, so I wanted to get a little more creative this week and see where I could take them. I traced letters onto water color paper using pencil and gave each child an angled paintbrush. The brush is flat and the soft bristles are cut at an angle to help the children stay in the lines.

To discourage the children from slopping on the paint very quickly (like any old painting), I had them wet their brush and then brush pigment off of water soluble artist crayons. They could pick up as much color as they needed and apply it to the painting that way instead of using the crayon on the painting and then applying water. This made the children work slower and achieve a nice blending of colors.

Without artist crayons, you may pick up an angled brush at the craft store (they can cost as little as $3) and teach your child about watercolor paints. Watercolor paint in pans  or in a tube is suitable for this project.

Thank you for stopping by- I hope you enjoyed the lesson.