How to Grow an Artist
What’s the course about?
This is 6-month course is for any child over the age of about 7 who needs a bit more guidance with their painting and drawing. It includes a box of high quality art materials that have been specially chosen to give the best results for growing artists and smaller fingers. It is delivered in six beautiful monthly instalments, each of which will guide your child through the early stages of becoming an artist. The course also includes an MP3 audio.
In addition to showing your child the basics of drawing and painting, the course will cultivate the habits of an artist. On the practical side this means everything from regular sketchbook practice to how to look after materials. But there will also be lots of praise, encouragement and validation, too. In my experience it is these invisible habits together with continuous encouragement that help an artistic child to flourish into a fully-fledged artist.
Each issue includes some playful assignments that are designed to help skills develop while fostering creativity and imagination. There’s a little bit of art history, too, and an interview with another home-educated artist. There will also be a moderated Facebook page to showcase children’s work (if they wish, of course!). All the artwork can be emailed to me for encouragement and guidance.
The contents of the issues are as follows:
How to see like an artist - collecting visual treasure, looking at small things, looking at big things, how to use your sketchbook. Playing with your new materials
How to make marks like an artist – different marks have different personalities. Using these personalities in our drawings and paintings for different effects. How to do a gridded drawing.
How to use colour like an artist – making a colour wheel, primary and secondary colours, complementary (friendly) colours (why some colours go together better than others). Colours and values.
How to make forms like an artist – modelling things so they look 3D. Lights and darks, warms and cools, translucence and opacity, plus edges and perspective (all age appropriate of course).
How to compose like an artist – how to organise all the things in your painting so they look happy together, using what we have learned so far.
How to be an artist – bringing it all together and looking ahead. A revisiting of what has gone before and an introduction to other ways of being an artist (abstract, portrait, etc).
Why did I produce this course?
Twenty years ago I began home educating my artistic 5 year old son – a route I’d chosen in part because I wanted him to have more time to paint and draw (which was all he seemed to want to do). But although I was an educator and later an artist, it was still challenging to provide a nurturing framework with just enough guidance to help my son develop his skills develop while not impeding his boundless imagination.
Choosing materials was another challenge. There were plenty of paints and pencils out there, for sure, but which were best for growing fingers while still making marks he could be pleased with? And what about the environment? Did I just cover a table with cling film and tidy everything away after an hour, or just accept that my carpet was doomed?
The last two decades have brought me answers to all these questions, mainly through trial and error. Many’s the time I wished I’d had someone to hold my hand, to help me trust my deepest instinct that when my child was drawing or painting for hours on end, we were not wasting time. However I emerge the other side of my journey wanting to be the hand-holder for other parents. I want to share what I know with you.
How To Grow An Artist
COST: £325
Siblings can do the course for £100, and will receive their own set of art materials and six course issues.