Regarding kids not taking up processes that you might be doing… I have noticed the same with my own neices.

So while I might give them both palletes with primary colours to mix… the 3 year old will just mix them all together making various shades of brown (and did this for over a year). But the 5 year old is systematically mixing one colour with another and being delighted in discovering the results. She watches me mix colours and then asks… “how do I make purple?”

Now a year later, I am surprised to see the younger neice is wanting to mix particular colours. She watches her older sister and now asks how to get a certain colour. It was like she had to go through her “anything goes”, “smudge it altogether” phase before moving into a more control based phase.

It is impossible to come to any conclusions from this small sample size, but I suspect that doing art together with a range of ages opens kids up to possibilities, even if they are not taking them up at the immediate time… it is all about exposure.

Just a week ago, the 6 year old niece looked at one of my pieces and said that each picture had an outline, and what had I used to get it? Then she tried doing that as well. A year ago when she looked at the piece she saw something different.

How do we initiate young children into art culture and What art culture might be suitable for young kids…

…and that begs the question what really is art culture??? A can of worms, or a great new discussion topic!

I think most big ideas about discplines can be put quite simply and concretely for young students (between 5 and 9 years) …. perhaps it is about selecting themes… what is the purpose of art, what does it mean to be an artist, what does it mean to look at art, how do different people see art, how has art changed our lives… etc…

So what might be concrete experiences of each of these? 5-7 year olds are into black and white thinking and love stories which have morals and lots of humour and intrigue. What great art stories are there? Why aren’t there children’s picture books on “the great art mystery of …”, or “Count Dracula decides to be an artist”.

I have actually got a Delauney children’s picture book which looks at how colours change when you put them next to each other – using one of his Eiffel Tower pics as a context. While educational it really needs a story to make it more interesting.

As students get older (7 – 13) they are more intrigued by real stories, heroic figures on epic and transformational journeys, exploring the weird and edges, going deep, getting technical.

Meanwhile, I think taking kids to art exhibitions is a great start as well as encouraging them to exhibit their own work, title it and look at how an audience interacts with it.

As for what Howard Gardner says….. well you might like to order the book from Amazon.com… there are lots of suggestions.

I have noticed that our kids Nino and Fran (3 and 4.5 years old) are pretty resistant to direct technical influence on their work if it is from adult art — for example, if Hanneke is drawing a still life with pencil, the kids never get interested in doing something similar. We have tried printing some of Hanneke’s still life drawings from digital images, but the kids show little interest in coloring these in with markers.

The kids like to color in things that we make for them by hand, outlines of animals or plant. Hanneke has often drawn various things like flowers or cats and they will color these. When I draw with them, I do so in “child mode” and I just draw abstract shapes. We work together, but they bring me more into the realm of children’s art than I bring them into grownup art.

It is as if the kids have some barrier that keeps them from being interested in the grown-up art process.

Thus, Gardner’s suggestion not to provide formal knowledge to the younger kids seems to be on target for our kids, at least. But even if she gave different advice, it wouldn’t seem to matter. The kids know what the want to do, it seems.

As for initiating school age children into Art culture, that is a fascinating idea. But what art culture does she have in mind?

We may see post-conventional artists (who know the rules and knowingly break them) creating stuff like little kids…. but there is a difference in the intent behind what is being done.

Personally I think everybody doing art is an artist – they are just doing it at different stages. My 6 year old neice has been making clay sculptures now for 2 years with me in my studio and is intending to exhibit and sell her work. We had a discussion about what makes you an artist and she has decided that if you create art then you are an artist. If you sell art then you are a professional artist.

Meanwhile, Gardner suggests some strategies to help young children develop as artists – expose young children to artworks or people doing art, but don’t provide formal knowledge – allow them to experiment and discover – allow their intuitive selves to be expressed.

So those of you who are doing your art alongside your children are doing exactly the right thing – the child will look at what you do and ask and then try something out that may be inspired by your process, techniques or reasons. You can suggest experiments for them to try rather than saying “this is how you do it.”

For school age children Howard Gardner suggests initiating students systematically and conceptually into Art culture – usually these younger students are very curious about their culture and how it operates.

What do you think of Gardner’s theories?

BYe, Sue

The opposite side of this is my granddaughter, who took up wrestling at age 16. She had been a computer-game junkie for years, and something about combat appealed to her. But after a couple months of wrestling, she admitted she was shocked to learn that the object of the activity was to inflict as much pain as possible without breaking the rules. The whole reality of pain suddenly became part of her knowledge base. She quit the sport.

My theory is that she had had only virtual knowledge of physical pain before and so its “reality” didn’t impact on her. Francesca’s reality is just the opposite; she feels viscerally that what is on the screen is happening to her. Eventually she’ll stop feeling that, but right now, developmentally, this could be important in some way I can’t put my finger on.

An aside: granddaughter, watching the Wizard of Oz when she was 3 or so, startled all of us by screaming (about the Wicked Witch of the West) “Poopy-butt old witch.” Like Francesca, she was convinced of the reality of the screen character.

Chuck Close is an artist.

This defines an occupation, career, or lifestyle

I am (this child is) doing art

Defines an activity