ART — Painting, Coloring and All That Jazz — by Guest Mom Burgin Streetman
Create an art space for your child that is permanent, varied, and always open. Pick a spot. Mount an easel. And leave all the supplies out. So what if the paint dries up because junior’s been too busy building train tracks all week. If the supplies are open and there, there is no schedule and a kid can create when the mood strikes him without having to wait for mommy or daddy to ready the spill proof cups or debag the crayons.
And speaking of crayons, I am sure these are made out of some toxic chemical that is going to peel back the ozone layer, but what’s up with Crayola’s new Twistable Slick Stix Crayons? The colors are amazing. They are almost like paint, but they are definitely crayons. Everything August draws with these is so vibrant and alive; I wanna mount them on the hood of my car for the world to see.
Labels: guest mom, kids, make something
posted by Gabrielle of Design Mom at Thursday, June 26, 2008
3 Comments:
A permanent art space?
This sounds like one of those good ideas that doesn't work in practice -- I'll check back in a couple of years.
Children create well WITHIN limits -- no limits doesn't mean more creativity, it actually means less.
Also, I can see the problems as Junior decides to do a bit of painting and then wants to climb into bed with Daddy.
Packing up and cleaning up is a vital skill to learn.
Like I said, I'd be interested if this idea continues... especially if more children come along.
I watched the video of August as The Painting Man - just beautiful. He looks like he is enjoying himself very much and I love how he uses different mediums!
August looks like he is definitely not being creatively challenged by his permanent art space.
I will definitely be seeking out some of those new Crayola's.
Both my sons have open art spaces in their rooms, and provided that they dont stick chalks into watercolouring cups or eat them, they are often free to do whatever they want, whenever they want. At least one wall in their rooms is always covered with plain paper I buy in bulk from wholesalers, and they can paint on that wall as well.
There are, like another commenter suggested, drawbacks though - like having a hard time drawing with all brown watercolours and incessant whining about needing new supplies since they fail to clean them afterwards. I tell them that they can clean the supplies themselves, and that in itself is actually fun as well.. Limits can be emancipating, but moms should know what fights to pick as well - three walls are off limits for painting, one covered with paper is enough, thats my limit.
I love it when one of suddenly them puts down his Nintendo DS and runs to his room mumbling to himself that he wants to paint now, and the other always follows - they probably would change their minds and go on to do something else if they waited for me to take out the supplies etc.
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