If you give a child a blank piece of paper and some crayons, they might have a difficult time filling the page. Perhaps they will create something, but often it's the typical pictures of houses and animals, subjects close to mind for most children. Sometimes the easiest way to expand your child's creativity is to expose them to the works of famous artist. This provides inspiration and showcases the idea that art comes in many forms and styles.
For most children, realism is what they produce. These are pictures in which the art resembles an object or scene much as it does in real life. To move beyond realism, it is fun to step slightly out of these bounds into the works of impressionists and post-impressionists, such as Van Gogh and Seurat. For instance, you can download and print a PDF mural from a site such as ArtProjectsForKids.org and have your children create their own unique copy of a work such as Starry Night or Sunday in the Park. In this way, children learn about a famous artist as well as a new style of art, which showcases the idea that a specific scene doesn't have to look completely realistic in order to be a wonderful work of art.
Surrealist painters such as Salvador Dali, Joan Miro or Rene Magritte offer plenty of great inspirational easy art projects for kids. Show the children some of Miro's work and explain how he used circles and lines to create dreamlike images of people, animals and objects. Encourage the children to draw stick figures with circles here and there and then color the various sections, circles and intersecting parts to create a colorful picture. Magritte's "Son of Man," is a fun painting to mimic. Just have children create a person with every element except the face. In place of this feature, add an apple or really any type of fruit or food or even an object and have them talk about why they chose that object.
Children are constantly being told to follow rules, but art is often an area where they are completely free. To show them that art doesn't have to follow any rules, show them paintings by abstract artists such as Jackson Pollack or Sonia Delauney. Then encourage them to create their own abstract works. For a Delauney-style painting, have them create a painting filled with huge, colorful circles. For Pollack, throw down some newspaper, put a canvas on top and let them explore using paint by dripping or splashing or even flinging paint onto the paper. As Pollack said, "the modern artist is working with space and time, and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating." So children can see that art doesn't have to illustrate, but can just be expressive.
Art is truly all around us and just about any object can be a great art subject, from the can of soda in the refrigerator or the comic strip from the weekly newspaper. This has certainly been the opinion of Pop Art painters, who were inspired by the popular products of the current times. For instance, Andy Warhol painted a can of Campbell's Soup. Roy Lichtenstein created vivid paintings that look like they are straight out of a comic book. David Hockney transforms a realistic painting into something unique by overlapping and using collage. A Hockney project could be as simple as cutting a photograph into pieces and pasting the pieces down in a slightly skewed manner. Children could paint a picture of a favorite food package or create their very own comic strip as other Pop art ideas.
In the end, the most important thing your children will learn is that art truly has no limit. Whatever a child thinks is beautiful, striking or captivating in some way can be the basis for an amazing art project.
For most children, realism is what they produce. These are pictures in which the art resembles an object or scene much as it does in real life. To move beyond realism, it is fun to step slightly out of these bounds into the works of impressionists and post-impressionists, such as Van Gogh and Seurat. For instance, you can download and print a PDF mural from a site such as ArtProjectsForKids.org and have your children create their own unique copy of a work such as Starry Night or Sunday in the Park. In this way, children learn about a famous artist as well as a new style of art, which showcases the idea that a specific scene doesn't have to look completely realistic in order to be a wonderful work of art.
Surrealist painters such as Salvador Dali, Joan Miro or Rene Magritte offer plenty of great inspirational easy art projects for kids. Show the children some of Miro's work and explain how he used circles and lines to create dreamlike images of people, animals and objects. Encourage the children to draw stick figures with circles here and there and then color the various sections, circles and intersecting parts to create a colorful picture. Magritte's "Son of Man," is a fun painting to mimic. Just have children create a person with every element except the face. In place of this feature, add an apple or really any type of fruit or food or even an object and have them talk about why they chose that object.
Children are constantly being told to follow rules, but art is often an area where they are completely free. To show them that art doesn't have to follow any rules, show them paintings by abstract artists such as Jackson Pollack or Sonia Delauney. Then encourage them to create their own abstract works. For a Delauney-style painting, have them create a painting filled with huge, colorful circles. For Pollack, throw down some newspaper, put a canvas on top and let them explore using paint by dripping or splashing or even flinging paint onto the paper. As Pollack said, "the modern artist is working with space and time, and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating." So children can see that art doesn't have to illustrate, but can just be expressive.
Art is truly all around us and just about any object can be a great art subject, from the can of soda in the refrigerator or the comic strip from the weekly newspaper. This has certainly been the opinion of Pop Art painters, who were inspired by the popular products of the current times. For instance, Andy Warhol painted a can of Campbell's Soup. Roy Lichtenstein created vivid paintings that look like they are straight out of a comic book. David Hockney transforms a realistic painting into something unique by overlapping and using collage. A Hockney project could be as simple as cutting a photograph into pieces and pasting the pieces down in a slightly skewed manner. Children could paint a picture of a favorite food package or create their very own comic strip as other Pop art ideas.
In the end, the most important thing your children will learn is that art truly has no limit. Whatever a child thinks is beautiful, striking or captivating in some way can be the basis for an amazing art project.
About the Author:
Kate Halfey likes blogging about art projects for kids. For additional information about different styles of arts such as Joan Miro for kids art projects or to find Kandinsky circle painting projects, please go to the ArtProjectsForKids.org site today.
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