Six Ways to Help Kids' Imagination Thrive through Art!

Illustrations and content created by: Arina Novak 

Way Number One: Combine art with music! 

Visual art and music are two easily combined components of art. They help to develop visual, tactile and ocular perception   facilitating the formation of diverse emotion spectrum. By letting your child work with tactile media, such as paint or oil pastels, they will be able to feel the texture of the material and develop awareness of the visual world. It is suggested that music does not have lyrics, such as classical music, it will provide a child with an opportunity to develop his or her own mental image and illustrate it by experiencing the certain set of emotions by listening to the melody. Your child can come up with anything, but in most cases, the tendency is to judge it as of inferior quality based purely on technique, rather let's focus on it being a delightful figment of child's imagination.
Quick advice: Let your child work with various colors, not just the primary three (red, blue, and yellow)
Suggestion: I created a playlist, which might be helpful to your child to develop various emotions, such as confusion or happiness.
Piano Sonata No. 11 in A Major by Mozart
Four Seasons, Spring by Vivaldi
 Morning buy Grieg
Carmen Suite No 1 by Bizet

Way Number Two: Tomato Can Be Blue!

When giving your child a coloring book, don't expect his or her immediate understanding that tomato is red. You need to give a child creative freedom by letting him or her to experience the nature of colors. Indeed, banana appears yellow, but it is not just yellow; it contains the combination of a plethora of different colors, such as green, brown, and red. So if a tomato appears blue to your child, explain that anything he or she sees is not a mere plain color! Actually, tomatoes contain some blue! 

Remember: it is much more pleasant to be aware of the colorful world!

Way Number Three: Teach Your Child Relationships Between Colors!

Colors are friends, and if you mix two hues you get the new one. As easy as this concept is, this is a part of the Color Theory, which features the color wheel, or the Bible of all colors. The colors are divided into the four major categories: primary (blue, yellow, red), secondary (green, purple, orange), tertiary (yellow-orange, yellow-grren, blue-purle, blue-green, red-purple, red-orange). To mix the primary colors, the result will be the secondary colors, and mixing primary and secondary hues, the tertiary colors are developed.  Why is it important? It is a basic science for kids and an opportunity to learn how to supplement two different colors to create the new one!
Tip: it is easier explain the concept of secondary colors
Helpful Tool:

RED + YELLOW = ORANGE
YELLOW + BLUE = GREENBLUE + RED = PURPLE 

Way Number Four: Personification!

When you tell your child to draw something, ask them to represent the subject matter not as they physically appear in real life, but as if an object was a person. For example, by drawing a sun, you and your child can add a squiggly facial expression and create a brief story, explaining why the sun is smiling, or why is it frowning; is it because the clouds decided to occupy a clear sky? By making short stories and instilling personality into an object or natural occurrence, a child is able to develop precious skills of entertaining storytelling and vivid illustrating!
Tip: as an adult, you need to ask your child questions in order to suggest the storyline, such as "Why is the Sun happy?" or "What is the Sun doing?"

Way Number Five: Draw From Observation!

When you look at the flower what do you see? Do you see a complex form or an array of arbitrary lines that create a full image? For a child, simplification of the forms in the key! When looking at an object, children are often confused because they see the full image without breaking it into various parts. As a consequence, instead of drawing from observation, they listen to what adults teach them: the house is consisted of the walls and a triangular roof, which are a triangle and a square. But instead of confining your child in the conventional understanding, it is better to teach him or her to understand the subject matter by purely observing its natural disguise. By doing so, your child will develop awareness of the world and understand the transformation between the three dimensional objects to two dimensional.

Tip: when going for a walk, encourage your child to take a sketchbook and pair of crayons; it would be easier to observe nature outside and record your observation by drawing a hasty sketch. 

Way Number Six: Appreciate Your Child!

After completion of creative work - celebrate! Occasionally, you can initiate small art shows, showcasing your child's work of the walls, inviting your family and neighbors over to contemplate the masterpieces of your little artist.
Advice: if you plan to reinforce your child's skills with positive reinforcement system, do not give small appreciation gifts right away. Be cautious, with an amount of candy or money you give to your child because they might lose a desire to produce high-quality art pieces and orientate themselves primarily on quantity rather than quality! 

My experience working with children!

Being an artist myself, I developed this method primarily to raise awareness about art and its essential place in education for young adults. This is my little student, who applied my philosophy in her artwork. She used method number two by creating a yellow house and drawing purple outlines.   

This is a close-up of her work!

remember to stay #arthearted !!!