Observational drawing with children

Exploring art is one way to tap into how your child sees the world and to encourage them to make observations of the world around them. 

I love the sweet little things that children say. Things that make you realise they don't always see the world the same way as you. The Fairy calls INSET days (UK teacher training days) 'Insect days' (I like to imagine she thinking her teachers are learning about invertebrates!) Or the Frog shouting 'ball' when ever he sees anything round in the vegetable aisle at the supermarket.

Drawing at the same time as the kids draw is really fun (it's a tip I have picked up from one of favourite bloggers Rachelle at Tinkerlab). I really enjoy the shared experience of creating together. The kids seem more engaged and want to take part for longer. It's also a great way to model that art doesn't have to 'be' a certain way or to be perfect to have value.

Earlier on this week the Fairy and I got out some chalk pastels and drew some squashes.

Before we started I encouraged her to hold and feel the squash- talk about the shape and colour. We talked about what other things were the same colour - oranges, sweets and her friend's hair.

We then got drawing each with our own sheet of paper. She drew 3 (very orange) squashes.

She loved smudging the pastel to mix colours.

Unfortunately The Frog wanted to join in with the arty action when he got up from his nap and drew over all of our finished art work. I need to remember to put things on a higher shelf!

Language Links: colours, shape and size concepts. Developing comparative language (same as, different, like).

Kandinsky for Kids: Exploring Kandinsky with craft foam

Did you know that when wet craft foam sticks to windows and bath tiles? Its a tip I picked up from reading this great blog. It's great to use to make pictures a kind of giant 'fuzzy felt' - without the fuzz. Both the Fairy and the Frog like to use it and will concentrate for a long time making creations.

We have previously explored Kandinsky (check out our posts here and here) and I thought some craft foam art might be a fun way to continue this exploration.

I showed the Fairy a pictures of Kandinsky's 'Farbstudie Quadrate' (circles) and then we talked about the shapes she could see in the picture. I then cut out lots of squares and circles. The Fairy then got to work making the picture (with a bit of help to get the squares straight). We chatted about which colours looked good together, she certainly knew what she thought there was lots of swapping of shapes just to check! She discovered if you put circles of the same size on top of each other you couldn't see the bottom circle, but if you put a smaller one on top you could.


When the Frog woke up from his nap he wanted to join in too - a fantastic family art lesson. Were arranged the shapes, talking about them as we did to make 'a person with curly hair'

Language Learning

Concepts: size, same/ different, place (on/under), shape and colour names

Other: expressing preferences ('I like the red circle when it's on pink', 'this one is better')

Vocabulary: stick (when using the water)

Gaudi Snails

Today were taking part in another fab 'Kids Get Arty' link up over at Red Ted Art. For the last link up we we got all Kandinsky. This time we decided to be inspired by a Spanish artist (The Fairy and The Frog's Papa is Spanish so we try and do activities that will hopefully mean they feel part of Spanish and English culture) . I've previously visited the Parc Guell in Barcelona and thought The Fairy would be attracted to the bight colour of the mosaics there - and I was correct (can't wait to take her there for real). She especially liked the lizard.

We talked about the colours in the mosaics and the shapes. We set to work ripping up bits of paper- recycling an old magazine.

She chose to make a snail (I was rather glad as my drawing isn't that great and not sure how lizard-like my drawing of a lizard would have looked!)

The Fairy's finished snail