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

How Jelly Roll Morton Invented Jazz - New Children's Book

Jelly Roll Morton claimed to have invented jazz - and many fans agree! A jazz pianist and composer, Jelly Roll performed across the country, but New Orleans was home to Ferdinand Joseph Lamothe.

Jelly Roll's music incorporated minstrel, ragtime, the blues and Caribbean sounds to create the sound that became known as jazz, and later performed swing. His hit recordings include:

• King Porter Stomp
• New Orleans Blues
• Dead Man's Blues
• Original Jelly Roll Blues
• Black Bottom Stomp

A colorful and popular musician who started Jelly's Last Jam.

performing in brothels at 14 and gained fame in the 20s and 30s, Jelly Roll died at the age of 50 (or close to 50, as there are different years attributed to his birth). His story and music regained popularity in the 90's when Gregory Hines portrayed him in the Broadway musical

How Jelly Roll Morton Invented Jazz  is a new biography and children's book by Jonah Winter and beautifully illustrated by Keith Mallett (release June 16, 2015) that brings together two naturals: music and art.

Children have an innate love for both music and art, and as an artist and jazz fan I'm excited to share this new book that introduces children to the sounds and colors of jazz.

As an admirer of Keith Mallett's art, I highly recommend this book to share with a special child in your life - and you'll like it too!

à la prochaine,

Shirley