Developmental Stages of Creativity 

 

Nancy began by explaining the importance of knowing what is developmentally appropriate for your grandchild's age. When you're aware of the developmental stages of creativity, you'll be able to provide the appropriate art supplies and activities your grandchild needs to flourish. She gave us a handout by Viktor Lowenfeld that describes the Drawing Development in Children from ages 2 - 14 years. Here's a link to this graphic  which describes each stage and shows an example of a child's drawing for that stage.    

 

Provide Some Basic Art Supplies

 

To encourage art so that it becomes a natural activity rather than something intimidating, always keep a good supply of paper and markers available. It can be computer paper, a sketchbook, construction paper, or watercolor paper. The Dollar Store is a great place to find inexpensive art supplies. 

 

Watercolor paint sets with a few different brushes are good for children ages four years and older. You'll need to show younger children how to dip the brush into water and clean it off to avoid ending up with a box of muddy colors. Personally, I just let my granddaughters have one set that they could get as messy as they wanted.

 

Be sure to put your grandchild's name and date on his art and definitely display it. When you display your grandchild's art, you are validating and celebrating his creativity. There are lots of different ways to display their creations. My daughter strings wires across her dining room walls and clips on the girls' art work. You can find picture frames that let you slide art into and out of for a rotating display. Bulletin boards and refrigerators have always made great galleries.  

 

3 Art Activities  

 

Drawing activity: Take a 12" piece of string and drop it onto a paper. Then trace around the string for an outline. See what animal or creature you can make from the lines. Fill it with shapes, dots, and lines. It's all about motivation and enthusiasm. Show your grandchild drawings by Van Gogh and talk about lines and wiggly marks. She'll get motivation and inspiration from looking at pictures.  

Painting activity: Show some photos of birds and talk about their different parts: feathers, beak, eyes. Ask your grandchild to draw an outline of a bird on colored paper. Color in using pastels. Using black watercolor (best if made from tube), paint over the pastel drawing. The results give a marbled effect similar to a stained-glass window. 

 

Craft activity: Make cards, bookmarks, or place mats using food coloring and newsprint. Fold a large piece of newsprint (One GaGa mentioned that IKEA has stacks of free newsprint on their checkout counters.) into an accordion fold. Then fold again in flag fold. The fold is not important. Fill 3 or 4 bowls with different food coloring. Dip one edge into each color. Then unfold and you'll have a Rorschach pattern on the paper. You can cut into strips and laminate them for bookmarks or make into cards. The large sheets can also be used for wrapping paper.   

 

Contour Drawing

 

Nancy teaches contour drawing to elementary school children. It teaches children to carefully observe and draw what they see by training the eye to look at edges. Contour drawing can help children break through barriers as they experiment and discover lines. These drawings can be done quickly and often have surprising results. A student's drawing ability can be greatly improved by learning how to do contour drawings. 

 

In her book, The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, Betty Edwards teaches the technique of using a pen and not lifting it off the paper as you look at an object. It's not about perfection but paying attention and looking at objects as you draw them.  

 

Find objects children relate to and try these techniques:

Blind contour: Don't look at paper while you draw object (for 9 years old)
Peek-a-boo: Look at object and then go back and look at paper but don't lift pen
Lift pen: Continuous line but you can lift pen to go to other side