As many of you know, an art journal is one of my favorite places for me to practice, explore, brainstorm and play with all kinds of mixed media techniques. But did you know that art journaling is also one of my favorite ways to create with kids? It is such a fun accessible way for kids to experiment, journal, doodle and play. With summer in full swing, art journaling can be a really fun activity for all ages. Here are a few of my favorite ways to incorporate art journaling with kids.
Art journaling is great activity for variety of ages (and skill levels) working at the same time with the same supplies together!
Let that art journal be the place where all that art happens! While I love to plan and orchestrate all kinds of art projects, it can be a lot of work to pull out different supplies. I love that Lucy's art journal is a really small easy place to get creative when we are limited with time and the ability to access lots of supplies.
While we love binding our own art journals, you can use just about any pad of paper for an art journal- a watercolor pad, a mixed media pad of paper, a sketchbook or even a composition notebook are all great things to use.
Prompts are a wonderful way to kickstart ideas with kids (or any age) and can be helpful when you are staring at a blank page. I like to have a handful of prompts (typically organized by season, or things we are talking about or learning about) ready to go. Having prompts on hand adds a little bit of guidance/direction for an art journaling session.
I like to select 2-3 different techniques at a time and I always limit the rules (typically there are no rules) and let them interpret the techniques and run with them!
As tempting as it can be to discourage kids from making mud by mixing all of the colors, I always give them the freedom to figure it out on there own. And you know what? They always do!
Embrace the mess! Giving kids (or anyone) the permission to make a mess is often all we need in order to stop overthinking and just get creative!
Art journaling is a really great family, friend, playdate activity and getting adults inviolved with the kids is another fun way to socialize and bond!
Looking for more or projects or inspiration for creating with kiddos? Head on over to my creating with a kid series of posts HERE
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
Color is a really big part of my own creative process and lately I've been encouraging Lucy to explore and experiment with it. Color can be used in so many different ways and one of the most profound is connecting emotions with color. So today I've got a few color prompts that you can use with your kiddos (or for yourself) to encourage the exploration of color. NOTE: These prompts are not about creating anything representational but instead are about simply about playing with color on a surface.
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 both my husband and I 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 voice.
1. Assign a word or an emotion to a color. Encourage your kiddo to work quickly and use whatever color pops into their head first when they hear that word or emotion. This process can train the brain to start connecting color with feeling.
2. Have your child randomly selected 2 colors. As they are painting, have them explain the feelings, ideas or reactions that they have to those colors.
2. Encourage your child think of a memory or an experience and then pick colors that represent that experience.
4. Turn on different songs and have your kiddo pick colors that are inspired by the music.
5. Get creative with those supplies! From brayers to spritzers to foam brushes to fingers and more- challenge your child to select tools and supplies that will help them express those emotions and color.
You can find more ideas and inspiration for creating with a kid HERE
As many of you know, we love making a creative mess around her and one our favorite things to do foot painting, yep you read that right...painting with our feet. It is a process that feels silly, messy and totally weird and Lucy has loved it since she was a toddler! It's also a process that is WAY more fun with friends so recently we invited some of our favorite kiddos over to experiment and stomp around in paint. And let me tell you it was a BLAST! Here are three of our favorite ways to use those feet to get creative-
A fun things to do is to use your shoes as a stamp! You could use an old pair of shoes with interesting texture on the bottom but I thought it would be fun to transform some cheap flip flops into stamps. I cut out shapes from craft foam and glued them to the bottom of the sandals. Then we dipped those shoes into paint and went WILD walking and stomping around on a big piece of butcher paper. The result is a surface filled with stamped pattern!
Wrapping those footies in bubble wrap is one of my personal favorite things to do- yes, I do this all the time! It's so much fun to walk around with that bubble wrap popping as you add colorful pattern and texture to a surface. Kids love this process because it's totally wacky, weird and tons of fun!
Using those toes to hold a brush is another really fun way to explore painting. This process actually takes a lot of focus so it's a great way to get kids to embrace abstraction and expression while having fun.
You can check out my entire series of "Creating With a Kid" HERE
We've had amazing summer weather (which isn't always the case on the Oregon Coast). It's been SUNNY and that means lots of time outside! A process that both Lucy and I are loving this summer is painting with ice. This is another kid's project that is just as much fun for the adults as the kiddos.
Start by filling the bottom of an ice tray with acrylic paint.
Next, add water to the top of the paint.
We added popsicle sticks to some of the ice cubes and then placed the tray in the freezer overnight.
Then we popped those ice cubes out and got busy painting on watercolor paper.
This process is super fun because it forces you to work expressive, abstract and quickly before the ice melts.
A great process for little (or big artists) that need to let go of perfection and overthinking!
You can find more ideas and inspiration for creating with a kid HERE
