Harr, who teaches art at the Smith College Campus School in Northampton, Massachusetts, tried another tack. She pulled out her file of ship and seaport photographs and hung them around the room. And, as part of a larger study of the ocean, she took her class to visit Mystic Seaport in Connecticut. Then she asked them to draw a boat--again.
The next set of drawings told a very different story. Harr saw everything from whaling ships to the Mayflower, boats with ratlines, huge hulls, lanyards, masts, mainsails, flags. "The results were amazing," she reports, "once they could name the boats and knew the functions of things on the boats."
PROVIDE A PICTURE
For some of us, the blank page, or lump of clay, or statement "Okay, do whatever you want" is the signal to shut down. Even if a child's mind has been full of ideas, it can suddenly go as blank as that page. Experienced art teachers like Harr try to head off this tendency by providing their students with actual objects, or pictures, or other artwork. It gives a child a place to start. After all, who would want to do a landscape drawing in a windowless room? The more detail a child can actually see and know about--for example, what the leaves look like up close--the more his mind will feel ready to begin.PROBLEM SOLVING
Another approach is to give a child a problem to solve. For example, Cathy Weisman Topal, author of CHILDREN AND PAINTING and CHILDREN, CLAY AND SCULPTURE (Davis Publications, Inc.), assigns Me and My Snowsuit to her kindergartners. Here, the "problem" is to first mix their own skin colors, and then mix their snowsuit colors. "It turns them into scientists," says Topal. "They become very involved in the process of finding the colors."GIVE ASSIGNMENTS, NOT ANSWERS
"Kids do need a starting point," says ANTI-COLORING BOOK author Susan Striker, who teaches art in Greenwich, Connecticut. "But what they don't need or want is all the answers."In her book, she suggests handing out quick, provocative drawing assignments such as designing a postage stamp for the first letter mailed from Mars, or drawing a robot that will do chores or designing a family crest. She notes, "Kids want to go off in their own direction, solve their own problems and do it themselves."
CREATIVITY TIP
Set an example for your child. Try to make time to work on art projects of your own. The more interest you show in doing art, the more likely you'll be able to pass along that enthusiasm to your child. Keep extra supplies available for her and a free space next to you at your work space. Over time, your child will no doubt become curious about what you're doing, and probably want to take her place there. You've jump-started her.
