creating with a kid- working large

As many of you know, we do a lot of creating around here and for a while Lucy has been asking to paint big! She's always around, often helping out when I paint a mural or working large but she's been asking to to work on her very own giant painting. Here is a peek into our process.

MY PHILOSOPHY ON CREATING WITH KID

My long time readers know I've been making art with Lucy from day one. From riding on my back while I filmed online classes to letting her create with me in the studio, it's been a priority to share the art making process with my daughter. As I have mentioned in the past it is important for me to incorporate Lucy into as many creative projects as possible. And while it makes no difference to us if Lucy grows up to be an artist, we do want her to be a creative thinker. I believe creativity and the ability to think in a creative way is one of the greatest gifts we can give our children and while I am always evolving as an artist and mom, I am learning so much as I watch her develop her own creative voice.  

We decided to go really big and we also decided (before starting or even knowing what it would look like) that this painting would hang in our guest room as a statement piece. 

Andy made us frame, measuring approximately 4ft X 6ft and I stretched canvas over the top. Then we got busy painting.

Even thought this project "belonged" to Lucy, painting six feet of canvas is a lot of work for a 6 year old so we teamed up to get layers of color on that surface. Lucy was in charge of selecting the colors and it was up to her to tell me where and when she wanted help.

We let that first layer dry and came back the following week to add another layer of color and drips. 

Once that layer was dry, Lucy began planning her painting. She knew she wanted to paint a lady. She described this lady as something magical like a queen or a fairy, with a rainbow dress with designs, hair like mama, light brown skin, purple lipstick, rosey cheeks, boobies (LOL) and a bouquet of flowers.

I had her draw out her ideas and experiment on paper before starting on the canvas.

Then she got busy creating the outline of the lady. She started with the head and then drew the body. Then we began filling everything with color- she continued to pick the colors and gave me directions about how I could help. 

The most important part for me in this process was to take the backseat and really encourage her to work independently.

She continued to work on her lady, adding eyes, nose and lips and then together we worked on little dots and details on the dress. Through this process, I spent a lot of time asking if she needed help, what she wanted me to do, what color I should use, what she wanted me to add and where to add it. Again, it was so important for me to let her direct any of the help that I gave when we worked together.

This session was the longest- 2 hours which is her current threshold for creating right now. After about 2 hours of intense painting or drawing, she gets wiggly and starts to lose her focus so we called it quits and came back another day to finish things up.

The last session was finishing up those details and adding words. Overall this painting took us around four different sessions of creating over the spam of about three weeks.

The end result is a really dynamic, colorful and super funky statement piece of art!

We really believe it is important to hang that kid art! In fact some of my favorite decor and art that we have in our home has been made Lucy over the years. And I love that her big painting is now a really bold statement piece in our tiny guest room!

Looking for more or projects or inspiration for creating with kiddos? Head on over to my creating with a kid series of posts HERE