Nurturing Creativity

Welcome back to my "slot of the month". Wonderful to be posting with you here again today. A quick reminder - I am Maggy, from Red Ted Art,  where I regularly get crafty with my two young children (4 years and 2 years old).

   

 As my children get older and in particularly, my son becomes more "able", I have started to think about and look at "Art" again more closely. Many of my activities a "product" orientated (which I think is fine, especially, as I try and let my children have as much free reign to explore as possible, whilst doing such product orientated crafts).

So I wanted to do a little more "process". But "process" focussing on art. What makes a good artist? What "tools" does any artist need to create?

 Though not exclusive, these are some core areas:

* Technique (possible the most important - learning about how to use brushes, paint, clay, junk etc etc to create)
* Imagination (isn't imagination what makes a great artists?) 
* Memory (though I am sure some art is purely isnpirational, a lot will come from memory - say you want to add a specific animal to your picture, you need to "remember" the basic things about that animal to make it recognisable) 


Because of this I launched a "Daily Creativity" series on Red Ted Art. Small, things, you can do that nurture the above "skills" in children. So when it comes to hands on art session, your children are ready to get arty!!


I would love to share our first 3 "activities":

 

Cloud Spotting A simple activity to do any time and any place - out of the window in a car or bus, whilst sitting on a bench or blanket in the park or whilst walking to and from school. Look at the clouds and what do you see? Do the things you see change? What are they turning into? Can you make a story? A firm childhood favourite, that promotes imagination! Original post here.

   

Cutting Skills A great "time filler", do it for 5 minutes here and there. If you find your child is a reluctant cutter... have you thought about either - changing your scissors or cutitng something different? Scissors: Many child safety scissors are very hard to cut with and therefore frustrating. No fun! Under supervision, I do let my kids use my scissors What you are cutting: equally, card or fabric can be hard to cut, whilst funky foam or playdough are fun and colourful. It is also a great way of exploring what different things are made off and how some are easy and some hard to cut! Original post here.

   

Potato Printing I think that potato printing is underrated - potatoes are so inexpensive and yet so versatile, there is no reason for doing it again and again and again. We cut some potatoes in to letter shapes (E, H and L) and looked at what patterns you could make. We investigated how best to print (lots of paint or little paint? One print or 3 prints before adding more paint) and mixing colours. Do it again and again and again! Original post here.

I hope you feel inspired by the above. Lots more to come (especially working on memory and techniques). And remember.. these ideas are to be done again and again and again, when you have a few minutes to spare do the simple ones, if you have more time, get out the paints!