How to encourage your budding Picasso.

By Stacy DeBroff

Art offers one of the greatest means of creative expression for your child, enabling her to experiment with and come up with manifestations of her own design. Kids love making original things, taking great pride in them and feeling a sense of accomplishment from the work they have done. In our fast-paced society, art can be surprisingly relaxing.

• Teaches concentration, problem-solving, critical thinking skills, and self-discipline

• Increased hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills

• Heightened focus and concentration

• Teaches creative thinking and an understanding of spatial relationships.

• Teaches color sense, observation skills, and the ability to transform a conceptual idea into reality.

• Expressing emotions through art gives your child an outlet for releasing built-up anxiety or tension.

Kids who tend to excel

• Art not only requires creativity and an open mind but also discipline, patience, the ability to sit quietly for long stretches, and concentration.

• It helps if your child has innate talent, but with patience, skill in art can definitely be developed.

• In art, children who do well learn to be able to think “outside the box,” learning to express themselves and solve artistic problems in innovative and original ways. They also must master materials and tools to achieve a level of craftsmanship that will enable them to be expressive with the skills honed.

Best age to start

• While kids can get immersed in art at an early age, most children do not start formalized classes until age 6. However, art can be picked up at any age.

What to look for when getting started

• The teacher should encourage your child to create her own unique art, rather than setting up a prescribed project with explicit instructions for the end result. Ask to see the projects that kids have done in previous classes. When looking into a serious art class, ask to see some of the portfolios of the teacher’s students.

• In order to ensure the type of individual focus that art demands, classes should ideally have no more than eight children per teacher. Make sure that the teacher is organized and able to pay attention to all of the students equally.

• The teacher should be an experienced artist who has taught kids before. Make sure that she is not controlling, and she is willing to get dirty right along with the kids.

• Kids don’t want to be told what to do. Instead, an art teacher should offer ideas and make suggestions but ultimately leave it to them to discover their own artwork and abilities.

Popular types of art classes

Animation/Cartooning

• These classes teach inking, human proportion, perspective, use of color and tone, and basic drawing technique.

• Your child will learn about key frames, line of action, captions and lettering while creating comic book pages. Ask about the subject matter: will your child be drawing Superheroes or something autobiographical?

Calligraphy

• Calligraphy, the art of highly stylized writing, teaches your child discipline, patience, and persistence. Some classes teach calligraphy in Chinese characters, as well as those of other foreign languages. Calligraphy can also be relaxing.

Ceramics, wheel-throwing, and pottery

• Ceramics teaches making creations with clay, from sculpture, to pinching, building with slabs or coils, or wheel throwing. Pottery is creating hand-built ware. A good teacher will explain where the clay is found, how it is manufactured, how it is fired, the appropriate temperatures to fire at, and how glazes, stains, and underglazes are made, applied, and fired.

• Your child will learn how to sculpt, make surface textures, and glaze to make free-form creations, sculpture, or items such as bowls, plates, and vases.

• As classes advance, your child will begin to explore form, mass, scale, color and texture, and will work with various types of clay medium.

• Starting around age 8, your child may move onto wheel-work, which involves centering the clay, opening up the piece, pulling up the walls, trimming the base, and glazing.

• Ask if kiln charges are included in your child’s class cost.

Painting and drawing

• In painting classes, your child will study techniques for watercolor, acrylic, and tempera paints. Classes work from your child’s own imagination, photos from magazines, still lifes, or famous paintings. As she advances, your child will learn brush techniques, color theory, and composition. Beginner classes start with tempera paint and then move on to watercolor, each of these water-base paints having unique characteristics that take time to learn and master.

• In drawing classes, your child will work with pencils, charcoal, and ink.

• When choosing classes, keep in mind that there are widely divergent types of painting. Ask about what techniques or style the teacher emphasizes.

• Ask if materials will be supplied, as watercolor papers are expensive, and there is no substitute for a decent grade paper, as well as quality flat, round, and linear brushes.

Photography

• Classes teach fundamentals of using a camera, including how to frame, center, and focus a picture. Advanced classes teach film exposure and darkroom printing. Ask about whether your child will be taking black and white photos, color, or both.

• The instructor should also teach the elements of art, the principles of design and how they are merged in photography.

• Equipment costs can be high depending on the level of the class, the type of equipment and film required, and whether the program provides the cameras.

Sculpture

• Sculpture offers your child the chance to explore the concepts of form and space.

• Sculpture brings unique challenges, as working in three dimensions is very difficult. It takes a special skill and understanding of form and materials to create interesting three- dimensional forms.

Sewing, Quilting, and Needlework

• Classes teach hand stitches, embroidery, quilting, patchwork, applique, button sewing, crochet, knitting, or machine sewing. Your child will work on anything from making a pillow to creating clothing. In the process of learning to sew, your child will work on measuring, spatial relationships, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills.

Woodworking

• Woodworking classes teach building and lathe (woodturning) work. Your child will create wooden items such as boxes, spinning tops, bookcases, and similar projects.

• Students have to follow strict rules of equipment use, learn how the machines are used, and learn craftsmanship. The program almost always provides safety goggles and woodworking tools.

Safety and Injury Concerns

• Make sure the program uses age-appropriate art supplies. Students should always be instructed on the proper use of tools being used to create a project.

• Make sure your child’s art teacher uses nontoxic materials until students are mature enough to handle materials that are potentially harmful, such as turpentine or lead-based glazes for clay. Some fixative sprays and paint solvents are very toxic and potentially carcinogenic, but most are labeled as such.

• Hot melt glue cans can cause burns if not used properly.

• Be especially careful in sculpture and woodworking classes, where cutting tools are used.

Cost Considerations

• Ask if there is a separate supply fee from tuition, or what supplies your child will be expected to purchase on her own. Tuition fees and supply costs vary dramatically based on the medium. Some classes charge as little as $20 for supplies, while more advanced classes can cost $100 to $200 to cover materials.

• Also ask if your child will have to pay for any special processes or contribute to exhibition costs.

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