Inside: Homeschool Art- The surprising way to teach your kids to grow in their confidence and ability in art.  {Plus a fun freebie}

I remember the day I peeked over my son’s shoulder. He was 12-years old.

He was sitting there so quietly- completely absorbed in his work. His intensity intrigued me, so I snuck over to take a peek.

I shouldn’t have been stunned, but I was.

How the in the world did he learn to draw so well?

Here’s the secret…

Technique

One of the things that will transform your child’s artistic talent is to teach her drawing techniques. Our sons learned things like perspective, shading, grid-line drawing, and upside down sketching over the course of many years, either from me or a ‘professional’ art teacher.

Those skills transformed their art-

From this:

To This:

What a difference a new way of thinking makes! Children who could only draw stick figures before a lesson quickly grow in their ability, confidence, and joy.

But, Bekki, I’m not an artist

That’s ok. A quick google search will bring you to great tutorials on drawing animals, grid-line drawing, zen-tangles, and more.

There is an important caveat though. Never do anything to discourage your kids when they are drawing and creating. Art is so subjective. What I find beautiful, you may hate. That’s ok. Art is so much more than paper and paint. It’s emotion, action, drama.

Let your kids draw to their heart’s content, but my suggestion is to sneak a “how to” lesson every now and again, or to incorporate it into your teaching lessons. I like to sneak my “how to drawings” on the white board when I’m teaching something else, like math.

Related:  If you have sons, their art may look like train wrecks for a while. This is why.

I have a treat for you.

A cheat sheet of sorts.

Here is a simple art project by education.com built solely out of shapes. Do not be deceived. You really can help your daughter improve her drawing skills simply by focusing on shapes found in life and nature.

This project focuses on shapes found in architecture.

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Have fun!

City Collage: Drawing With Shapes

For budding architects out there, this is a quick and easy way to learn the basics of landscapes and architecture without having to draw perspective.

This also gives kids the opportunity to take a closer look at the shapes that exist in buildings from domed cathedrals to skyscrapers influencing their own fantastic city.

What You Need:

• White watercolor paper, 8.5″ x 11″
• Variety of colored construction paper
• Scissors
• Glue Stick
• Ruler
• Pencil
• Oil pastels, color pencils, or crayons

What You Do:

1. Look at tons of photos on the Internet of buildings in cities from around the world with your child. Have her tell you all the shapes she sees and if the buildings are standing alone or overlapping other buildings. Also show examples of how buildings can be smaller in the distance and how some buildings are so big, that you only see parts of them hidden behind other architecture. Different architectural cities could be Denver, Frankfurt, Seattle or Dubai.
2. Have her draw out different sizes of rectangles and squares on the colored papers using a ruler and then cut them out. These will be the basis of all buildings.
3. Using a ruler or freehand, she can cut out a variety of shapes that will fit on top of the buildings such as domes, triangles, arches, and circles. These should also be cut out.
4. She can now lay all the shapes out on the white paper figuring out how she will plan her city. Encourage her to overlap buildings and alter the shapes of the rooftops. The buildings should span the entire width of the paper.
5. With everything in place, she can now carefully glue all the structures in their places.
6. Once glued, she can draw in the sky, windows and any other details she would like on the buildings.
7. Hang up her finished city skyline.

Encourage her to create different cities or fantasy-scapes, including ones that may exist underwater or in outer space!

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Preview of the Heart of Homeschooling God’s Way Master Class.

We need to STOP measuring success by grades, achievements, awards, and worksheets.

Enroll in the sneak peek class here.