Summer Activities to Nurture a Young Artist

When children are young, creating art is encouraged with abundant crayons, paper and praise. But as young children grow older, too often artistic activities are neglected in favor of academic projects. A career as an artist depends on many things, one being a nurturing environment to create art. Here are three activities you can do with your child this summer to create art and encourage creativity and expression.

3 Summer Kid's Projects to Develop Artistic Creativity

1.  Museum scavenger hunt: Take a field trip to your local art museum and hand your child a list of works or artists to find. Provide age-appropriate tips and tidbits as clues to find the artwork. For a pre-teen with a cell-phone try a clue like:

this pop artist is famous for his painting of a Campbell's soup can

2. Set up an easel in a park: Kids are used to drawing at home or 

at school, drawing outside with an easel and pad is a totally different experience. Some children are easily distracted when asked to draw outside: a viewfinder to define the scene can be helpful.

Make your own viewfinder: a piece of 8x10 inch cardboard with a rectangle cut out as a window, about 3x4 inches. viewfinder instructions here

3. Draw a night scene: When children draw nature, they're 

typically encouraged to draw daytime scenes: flowers, sun, blue skies. Take advantage of the nice summer evening weather and (no morning school alarm) to draw night scenes, encouraging different colors and shading than daytime scenes.

For inspiration, discuss Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night.

I'd love to hear how you encourage art in children!

à la prochaine,

Shirley