I have thought a lot over the past 15 years about putting the right tools in children's hands so that they will be successful in art. That's why you find artist's materials and tools suggested in our program, rather than typical school-supply types of things like bulky bristle brushes, crayons, and cheap poster paints. My attention to good art materials at appropriate ages does not mean that all materials will meet every child's needs at all stages of his development. However, with a little attention to what the child is trying to accomplish, any frustration with a tool or materials can usually be easily resolved. If a child is trying to get fine details, make sure that tools are sharpened and a brush that comes to a point is provided as an option. If a child is learning to color in broad areas, a material that does this fairly quickly is needed. Our program pays attention to the child's needs and desires for their art, rather than dictate a prescribed attitude of patience while dealing with tedious art practices or handling awkward materials and tools, as so many other programs do. With that in mind, here are the reasons we suggest specific watercolor materials at specific ages and how you can help to keep these materials working FOR your child.  

The watercolor crayons suggested with the use of ARTistic Pursuits, Grades K-3, Book One offer strong color and good performance by breaking down easily when water is applied. Another feature that suits a young child well is that the crayon form allows the child to cover a large space quickly. This is important at an age when patience is short and results need to be obtained relatively easily. One important aspect of the book is to encourage students to not only draw an outline of the objects they choose to depict, but to fill in the large areas with color. Skies can be created by mixing white and blues and other colors. Grass and ground areas can be filled in, then blended with water. As the parent you can assure success, and therefore interest, by occasionally sharpening the crayons so that details can also be obtained easily. Do sharpen crayons when a child wants details. Occasionally sharpen crayons between uses. Crayon sharpeners can be purchased in art supply areas of office and department stores and are made by Crayola as well as a few other manufacturers.

Watercolor pencils are used when children are more mature and generally spend more time on their work of art. We suggest their use in the middle school color book, ARTistic Pursuits, Grades 4-6, Book Two. The advantage of the pencil form is that it holds a point longer. This allows the child to work with precision for longer periods of time before the pencil needs to be sharpened. A handheld pencil sharpener should be on hand while the child is working. Pencils can also be used to cover or fill in large areas, but will need to be sharpened more often when working in that way. Because of these characteristics, the pencil form of watercolor is suited to the needs of the older elementary child. Sometimes children this age find sharpening a chore. If so, then sharpen the pencils for them between every few uses.

Watercolors in pan form or in trays are suitable for a child that can think about cleaning his brush between dipping into the colors. A two or three year old has difficulty or no desire to do this. By age seven or sometimes sooner, a child will see the benefit to keeping the colors clean and mixing colors in the mixing area of the tray. In the early stages mistakes will be made, even though children like to start with clean colors. To clean up colors in the Prang set, wait until the paint has dried. Take a very wet paper towel and dab the top of each color until the unwanted color is lifted off. Older children will learn to control the color so that this task is unnecessary. A high school student will have no trouble controlling the mixing of colors with just a bit of practice. Color mixing trays can be cleaned using a paper towel as described above. Do not run water over the colors, as it will waste too much paint in the process.

Next month we will take a look at the properties of specific drawing media and how each works well at specific ages. You'll see when charcoal techniques can be handled successfully, why we introduce ink drawing at the junior high ages, and more on pencils and other drawing media.