Sparkling Creativity!
You may be scratching your head wondering why your kids aren’t more interested in art. While not everyone is predisposed to be a creative soul, there are some things that you can do to help your kids get into coloring, painting and drawing.
Instead of concentrating on technique, composition or other such serious topics, make sure that your children are first and foremost having fun with what they're doing. This is especially important when children are just beginning to earn to color and draw. They are much more interested in their films and television programs than they are in learning art, so use that to your advantage and find interesting themes on television.
So for instance, what kind of cartoons or programs do your children regularly watch and how can you incorporate those characters, environments, colors and ideas into a fun art activity? Remember that for whatever theme you choose- the art ‘lesson’ should be easy to complete so that your child's self-confidence in his or her abilities grows.
Building self-confidence is very important because it will help carry your little ones past the initial learning curve required when learning the fine motor skills that coloring in and painting require. To begin with, the goal should not be to produce proficient little artists, but rather to build enough confidence in your child that they are interested in having an art ‘lesson’ again.
If you don’t ‘grab’ them and get them interested when they are just starting out, your children risk developing the ‘I can’t draw,’ and the ‘I can’t paint/color’ syndrome and then you have surely ‘lost’ them – well, at least in the short term.
So, think about which television, movie or cartoon characters your kids enjoy and look for a few online art resources that would interest them and spark them. For instance, at sites like Disney Coloring Pages you’ll find the best Disney printables and many other printables such as paper crafts, free printable party invitations and activity sheets that would appeal to both boys and girls. Coloring in an existing drawing isn’t as daunting to a young child as a blank sheet of white paper is. Younger children may easily be lost for ideas on what to draw when faced with a blank sheet of paper.
True, coloring sheets may not encourage creativity & immagination as much as say, a blank canvas does – but they do provide a great springboard for younger children to practice their fine motor skills and an opportunity to slowly build up the confidence in their dexterity and artistic abilities to progress onto the big wide world of art!