Drawing With Children (and adults too!)

When I was a little girl, one of my most favorite pastimes was drawing. I LOVED art! It was one of my most favorite subjects in school. When I had my son and knew I would be homeschooling him, I was very excited about the prospect of instilling a love for art in him. Although my son does enjoy looking at artwork, unfortunately, he does not share my love for creating artwork.

In the latest issue of Altered Arts, Jeni Calkins wrote an article entitled, Teaching Mixed Media & Altered Art to Children. This brought back to light my desire to teach my son how fun creating art is and how it's one subject he doesn't have to worry about getting any wrong "answers" (since we all know that there is no "wrong" in art - it's all in the "eyes of the beholder").

I found a book entitled, Drawing with Children, by Mona Brookes. I haven't read the whole book yet, but in skimming through the pages it talks about how anyone, children and adults alike, can draw, you just have to know the five basic elements that can create shape. The examples in the book of artwork drawn by children as young as two are amazing!

When we create altered art we tend to use the artwork of others, whether it be rubber stamps, paper, etc., but why not do this instead? (Okay, can you tell a challenge is coming up?) Create a piece of artwork that only entails artwork created by your own hands. Let the words be in your writing; let the art be drawn by you; only use embellishments made by your own hands.

To help spark your creativity, I'm putting this challenge up to our design team members and asking them to post their artwork on their Altered Arts blogs. Let's see how creative we can all be. Oh, and Cyndi, let's see what you can create too! What about me??? Well, I suppose it would only be fair to have me do the same.

Deadline: November 3. (I work better with deadlines.) :-)

Let's create!

-Clara