The Art of Learning–Teaching a Child to Draw

So don’t hurry to teach your kid to draw a blue sky, yellow sun and green grass. Let him get familiar with the rich world of colors. You will, of course, face some difficulties. The brush should be clean in order to get crisp bright colors and it is very hard to teach kids to keep it so. Most likely you will have to wash it all the time while your kid creates senseless compositions, drawing little houses and “headleg” men. Don’t be quick with suggestions and recommendations. Don’t spend a lot of time studying objects. It is more suitable for drawing with pencil.

So we have to give the kid various paints and leave him alone? No, this is not the best way either. You have to manage the process but it shouldn’t be evident. Particularly, it can take a form of your choosing the paints.

The question of what colors to choose is one of the first parents have to answer. How many colors should be given at one time – all, or just two or three? Should it be bright or soft, pastel colors? Should semi-colors or contrast compositions be chosen?

Most of these questions can be answered differently. But two rules should be followed constantly. First, as it has been mentioned already, all colors used for drawing should be clear. Second, they should be able to be combined (it is easier to achieve if there are few colors). Then every composition created by your kid will be pleasant for the eyes, and more importantly, will contribute to the formation of the sense of colors and harmonic combinations of colors.

It is very useful to give your child an opportunity to draw on colored paper. In this case, pay attention to the fact that light colors are better seen on dark paper and vise versa. Don’t give the paints in the original packages, put a small dab of each color on a paper plate or other “palette.”

Let the child feel the brush and color

We can suggest some special tasks for three-year-old children:

“Turn on the lights in the windows.” You draw a house with large windows with pencil and ask the kid to “turn on the lights in the windows” by painting them with yellow paint. “Footprints on a road.” You draw a road (two parallel lines) and say: “Somebody has walked this road. Let’s draw the footprints.” The kid is drawing “footprints” by pressing the side of the brush to the paper.

“Fall leaves.” The child is covering paper with colorful spots. “Flowers in grass,” the kid draws various colorful sports on the sheet of green paper. “Clouds.” Blue paper is covered with large white spots. “Fireworks.” Spots of different colors on black paper are applied. “Stars.” The childe draws multicolored dots on black paper. “Light the fire.” You draw several lines at the bottom of sheet of paper, representing wood. The kid draws lines of yellow, orange and red color going in different directions. Dark paper is more suitable for this type of painting. When using the exercises like “Turn on the lights in the windows,” “Fall leaves” and “Light the fire,” you can teach your kid to choose necessary colors from several offered (in the first exercise – yellow; in others – yellow, orange and red).