7 Tips for teaching art to kids

So you want to sling paint with kids?

Thinking of starting your own class?

Or possibly you just have a houseful of kids bouncing off the walls and you want to channel that energy!

Here are some bits of wisdom from years in an elementary classroom and teaching art.

1. Do your homework. This means time on Pinterest, blogs, reading books, at the library or book store....ect. 

Here are some good sites: 

www.artsonia.com was my go to site when I taught 2nd grade before the Pinterest revolution came about lol

Here are my go to blogs:

www.deepspacesparkle.com
www.sleepyheaddesignsstudio.com
www.splishsplashsplatter.com

Some of my favorite idea books:

Art Lab
Collage Lab
Doodles Unleashed
Art Projects from Around the World

2. ALWAYS try to project out before. This is more for teachers. Not only is it good for the students to see a finished product but you will know the steps it took to make it. I've tried out several paintings that I realized would be better suited for a younger group or once I have an advanced class.

If you are just doing art at home with your own crew it may be an adventure to try out an art project together. Kids will benefit so much from seeing that creating is a priority and making memories doesn't hurt either!

3. Creativity blooms when you are around others who inspire you. My soul sista and I shoot each other texts all the time of whatever we are working on and get together to work on our various projects. It's also good to have people that will give you an honest "professional opinion". Especially if you are like me and can't choose between Warhol, Haring Thiebaud or Johns for the Pop art lesson. Decisions, decisions.... 

They also can double as a photographer when their kids are in your class. Here I am, 4 months pregnant demonstrating the fine art of spiderweb drawing. 

4. You don't have to have expensive materials. Kids just love to create. Period.  My first several years of teaching I had a paltry supply of half empty water color trays, soft pastels, tempera paint and whatever the kids happen to have in their desks that we created masterpieces with.

Here is a Monet inspired lily pads a 2nd grader did only using markers and spraying it with spray bottle of water.
Seriously.
Anyone can do that.

5. Start out small. If you are taking a bold step and doing your own class, wanting to incorporate it more in your classroom or just have the desire for it to be part of your family culture, you don't have to go all out at first. By starting small you figure out what works and what needs improvement. That's why my first summer I only taught on Tuesdays to allow time to reflect between classes.

If you are a teacher find an art project that goes along with something you are doing in science. For example, do a collage of the water cycle and chunk that boring worksheet in the trash!

If you want to do art with the family dedicate one day a month to art. Visit a museum, find an artist you like, get some books from the library and be inspired together! Here is my son admiring his Aunt Afryka's personal favorite by Maxfield Parrish at Crystal Bridges Museum. 

Norman Rockwell is always a hit because his work can vary from hilarious to extremely deep. Could make for some interesting discussions. Here is a drawing that one of my 6th grade students did when he found his favorite Rockwell work.

6. Realize that art is a process and products don't have to be perfect. Kids know this more than adults because we have been trained to strive for perfection. As long as they had fun and learned a thing or two, then I call that a success.

7. Have fun! When my 2nd graders would be cleaning up after a collage project (because those tended to be the messiest) they'd say "Wow! We made a mess!" I would always respond that messes were evidence of fun :)

Miro family portraits & Dali clocks

I had planned on doing a Cezanne fruit painting for the last day of mimicking the masters BUT the crazy/abstract/pop -pretty much anything to do with modern art side of me wanted to take on some surrealism!

Enter Miro & Dali. Two surrealists who couldn't be more different in their art 

and in life. 

Seriously, who wears a mustache like that anyways? 

You've got to have some crazy art to back up a crazy look like that! 

Anyways, after checking both them out, talking about surrealism, we identified the types of shapes and lines throughout Miro's work and played with his style in their sketchbooks.

Then, I had the girls draw a shape for each member of their family and using that as their torso, build off of it with crazy line and shapes to represent the rest of there body using either India ink with a brush or a sharpie. Whichever they felt more comfortable using.

Next they added color with acrylic paint, paintmarkers or sharpies.  

Once it was dry they reoutlined in black sharpie.

This was probably the least step-by-step lesson I've EVER done, and the girls loved having so much freedom on it.

This would also be perfect for a lesson about shapes.
I would have LOVED to have done this when I taught shapes in public school.

Would have been adorable!

And here is the clock process:

You take an old vinyl record.

Turn the oven up to 220 f.

Pop that record in the oven for 5 minutes or so.

Once it starts to curl along the edges use pot holders to take it out.

Using pot holders (which i am not in this pic becuase this record was looong cool) bend the record on the edge of the counter. I pulled it on the bottom to give it an even more dramatic look of actually melting.

Here it is bent up. Ah, don't you just love vintage labels lol

Prime that baby with white spray paint.

Spray paint desired color. **My golden was not harmed in the making of this art.

Nor was the rest of the audiance in attendance around my house.....

Use a sharpie or paint pen to draw either numbers or Roman Numerals, also adding your arrows.
I let the girls use a gold or silver paint pen to go along the middle and edge of their clock.

You could let the kids do all these steps but for time purposes the girls only did the spray painting and beyond. I did a sample one in the oven so they could see it but I melted all the records earlier that day that we used.

Klimt- Tree of Life

Gustav Klimt on of my absolute favorite artists but one I was absolutely fearful of attempting because so few of his work is kid friendly. My little my group of 7-12 year old girls studied the Tree of Life, The Kiss and some of his fully clothed portraits all the while looking for patterns. 

To make our own Tree of Life they first used some shimmery fluid acrylic on the canvas to break up the whiteness. Once that dried we started from the base of the tree and worked our way up keeping in mind that a tree's branches are thinner as you go up.

For this, we used a combo of a few browns and matte fluid to make it easier to achieve the desired swirls.

Next we talked again about patterns or objects we'd seen: triangles, dots, birds, mushrooms, mushrooms with eyeballs, squares, blobs, flowers, a blanket, ect.

To spice things up you can have them work on each others for a minute to give some life to their neighbors painting and to gain inspiration for when they get back to their own. 

If a kid got stuck, I had them flip their canvas to get a different perspective, this helped them focus areas that needed attention.

In the end some added caterpillars, bird houses, butterflies and even checkerboard games to theirs! Hey if Klimt can get away with the craziness on his tree then so can we!

Van Gogh Sunflowers

I knew this lesson would take the entire two hours, if not more so I didn't even attempt picture taking. Check out Sleepyhead Designs Studio here for the tutorial on it. Her blog has yet to fail me! 

I am beyond proud of how these 7-12 year old girls did! All but one of the girls have taken several classes with me and I have loved watching them develop in their technique over the last year!

Here is my example I did. Usually don't post mine but I was so proud of it as well as theirs' that I had to throw it in :)