Father Notes: Art Time

Our table covered with sketchpads, the nice Pentel markers, and colored pencils.

Last Sunday, my daughter asked if we could have family art time.  She's a little artist who likes to work in multi-media, incorporating paint, crayons, scraps of ribbon, cut up paper, and all sorts of other baubles into her artwork.  She loves it when we pull out the art supplies and get to work as a family.

The thing about how we do it, and the thing that I think is good for her, is that mommy and daddy have their own art supplies.  Tracy and I have our own spiral sketchpad, our own fine point markers, and our own charcoal pencils.  These are the more expensive art supplies, and Shea knows she'll get to use them if we have "family" art time.

I think it is important for Shea to see that her parents have these things.  It takes art out of the realm of being a childish pursuit and turns it into something that anyone can do at any age.  For me, I find it critical to teach children that art is a lifelong pursuit, not a childish whimsy.  I am not a fine artist.  Nor am I a professional painter, but I am someone who enjoys the pursuit of art, the challenge of it.  Art challenges parts of the brain (and the fine muscle control of the body) to do something it is unaccustomed to doing.  It is another way of thinking, of observing the world, of engaging the imagination.  It is an important method of interacting with the world, of being alive.

Shea and I spent the whole afternoon together making pictures.  After my first one, Shea started to emulate my picture, to mimic, and try her own hand at what I had done.  My picture inspired her to try new things with her own art in a safe way.  She tried to draw new things and worked with the "composition" of her picture in a new way as a result.  I was impressed with her willingness to try.

Shea's picture which mimics mine.

While she took individual elements from my picture, she made sure to make hers different.  She turned to me at one point and said, "See how your sun is behind your cloud?  Mine is separate."  She took the elements of my picture and started making it her own.  The hearts buried under the ground?  Those are lost jewels that haven't been found yet.  The waterfall is also flowing into a pond, not a lake, for a lake is big and her pond is small.  Each element had a story, a narrative behind it, a reason for being that began shaping a world around her picture.  Her art inspired a story, which is yet another way of thinking about the world, another way of knowing.

It is important to give our kids time to create, and to watch them see our own attempts at it.  Art isn't just giving your kids crayons at the restaurant so they will behave.  It is a pursuit worth dedicating an afternoon, an activity worth their attention and ours.  When was the last time you sat down and spent some creative time with your kids?  When was the last time you broke out the paints, the crayons, the clay, the play dough, or the pipe cleaners?  It may be time to engage them and yourself in a little artistic play time.  You'll never regret it.

And if you won't take it from me?  Here it is from the mouth of the girl herself.