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Sue:
Carolyn Holm the author of Everyday Art for Kids has always been surrounded by art.  Her mother created an atmosphere that encouraged and nurtured Carolyn and her siblings to be  creative and imaginative.  In addition to making art from ordinary objects, like a used box, Carolyn also was busy writing stories and poems as well.   As an adult Carolyn continued her love of art into her professional work.  She became a graphic designer with her own firm in San Francisco, California where Carolyn was able to be "arty" every day.

After the birth of her daughter Carolyn's life changed a bit.  She stayed at home with her daughter and decided to make a career shift, yet art was always in the picture.  She taught art in classrooms.  Her classroom experiences in teaching children art and in talking with their parents inspired her to write Everyday Art For Kids.  She found that even the most self-confident parent was a bit unsure of themselves when it came to art. This propelled Carolyn to create a tremendous resource for both parents and children so that they could do any project successfully, that they desired. This provided the foundation for her book Everyday Art For kids.

In Everyday Art For Kids Carolyn takes you to all areas of arts and crafts. Not only does she discuss what art materials are good for what projects but how to use these them in various creations and projects.

Everyday Art For Kids is just like having a wonderful arts and crafts teacher right by your side for any and all creative projects.

Carolyn, thanks for joining me today : ).

More than just a craft book...

Sue:
Your book Everyday Art For Kids is a wonderful guide, plus projects, so that kids and the adults in their lives can successfully and joyfully create wonderful craft/art projects. Your book is more than just how to do projects but really helps people set up an art environment and learn what all the different types of tools, media etc.. do and can be used for ( like oil paints, old magazines, paper). What made you decide to go with this effective format?

Carolyn:
When I present a project, I want to keep it very open and flexible.
This allows the child to be the artist, making choices about what the finished product will look like, which direction it will take.  If I were to take the traditional project book approach, which shows a finished piece and gives directions about how to get there, I would be making a lot of these choices for the child, and really skipping the creativity part.  Instead my book gives children lots of things to work with - project ideas, materials ideas, plus helpful skills and techniques - and then lets them decide just how their version will take form.  This really gives them a forum for creativity.

Also, materials can really drive a project.
A lovely piece of gift wrap can be the starting point for a collage idea, sending a child off on a search for the rest of the materials.  Souvenirs from a trip - maps, ticket stubs, brochures - just beg to be put together somehow - perhaps to decorate a box to hold the snapshots from that trip.  So materials are very important and it's very useful to have one place to find out more about them.

And so are tools,
because often knowing about the right tool can make all the difference.  Take jewelry making.  You can't really do much beyond stringing beads without needle-nose pliers.  But with them a pre-teen or teen can make necklaces, earrings, and bracelets for herself and her friends.

Skills & Techniques
And because skills and techniques make it easier, they are included too.

• How to do a block print.
• How to transfer a drawing.
• How to open a jump ring
  (necessary for making that jewelry!).

So by making the book a reference for all kinds of art skills and materials in addition to project ideas, the book is more flexible, encourages more creativity, and its scope is much larger.  It becomes a book that can be used by a family (or teacher) over and over for years.  It's flexible enough so that siblings of different ages can do the same project side by side, each bringing to it their own development level.  And a child can do the same project many times and it will be different every time, depending upon the materials he chooses as well as his level of development each time he does it.

How parents can help

Sue:
I really like your suggestions on how to keep supplies handy and neat and what to do with projects when they are finished. How would you inspire a parent to have her kids doing more crafts and art at home?

Carolyn:
A lot of parents don't do enough art at home because it is daunting. Daunting both because of the mess, and also because most adults don't feel "competent" in art.   As you mention, the book has some suggestions for minimizing the mess.    It also has suggestions to help the "art challenged" adult (as a parent described it to me recently!)  What I try to get across in my book is that you don't have to be an artist to inspire your kids to be artistic.  Anyone can provide an art rich environment, because it is mostly about providing good materials and - believe it or not - staying out of the way.

If you pay attention to this, the rewards to your child are tremendous. Because art is not only fun and rewarding on its own, it can be a wonderful  way to develop many of the skills we want to see in our kids.  I say "can be" because it depends how it is handled.  I talk about Open Art and Closed Art in my book, and there you'll find seven incredible benefits of Open Art.  One of these, for example, is the development of problem solving skills. When projects are presented as Open Art rather than Closed, and the adult can be "hands off" and refrain from helping too much, kids are challenged to think creatively, to solve their own problems, to plan, to be self reliant. These are all things that will help them in school, in life.  Truly an inspiration to parents to have their kids doing more art!

Let the kids do the art

Sue:
You have included so many fun and neat craft ideas like treasure boxes, greeting cards and weaving to name a few. What do you think is the most important goal when kids are crafting?

Carolyn:
No matter what the project, I can't emphasize enough how important it is to let kids do Kid Art.  And it's important to appreciate Kid Art for what it is, for what it looks like.  If a project looks like it was designed by an adult, has only one outcome, and requires a step-by-step procedure to get to it, chances are pretty good it's not really Kid Art.  Kid Art looks different from adult art.  (It is often much more charming!)   And it truly engages the child because it is her very own idea.

So what is the adult's role?
This is a frequently asked question, and a very good one.  This is why my book offers suggestions on what to say and even more important, what NOT to say, and what an adult can do to inspire creativity.  Because the adult's role is very important, whether you're the parent, a daycare provider, or a teacher.

For starters, you can frequently give the process a jump start by coming up with fun suggestions.  If you draw a blank, you can simply  thumb through the book and you'll come up with all kinds of ideas ("Do you want to make a book?"   " How about drawing a picture of Auntie Nina's wedding?"  "Why don't you make a treasure box for Grandma?").

Your other role is to be available for assistance with some skills and technical problems   ("Let's see if it's easier to cut out the picture when we cut a margin around it first."  "Scotch tape may not be strong enough to hold that wood together...let's try duct tape.").

But other than that, you should stand back.  Let your child figure things out.   She'll find out for herself that the scotch tape won't work on her wood construction, and it will mean so much more for her to learn this by her own trial and error.  Then when you offer duct tape, she'll jump to it because she'll truly understand its advantage!  And when she's finished, she'll have done something all on her own, and you'll see a real boost to her self esteem.

Art for older kids

Sue:
What can we do about older kids, who are starting to be very self-critical about their art?

Carolyn:
I'm glad you brought that up.  This is a real problem, because this is when a lot of kids decide that they are not "artistic" and back off from art altogether.   It usually starts between eight and ten.  One source of the problem is our culture's emphasis upon being a "good drawer".  Most of us think that a child who is a good drawer is more artistic than the one who is not.  But this is a myth!

Realistic draftsmanship is just one art tool among many.  In fact, the artist who can only draw realistically won't get very far. Art is about communication, about balance and unity, about color and line and texture and so much more than just drawing realistically.  This is why when I teach I give kids a lot of abstract projects, because abstract projects really emphasize all these other skills, plus it gives them the message that art is not just about making something look like something.

On the other hand, there are drawing skills that all kids (and adults too) can learn.   And starting at about age ten a lot of kids are ready for projects where the emphasis is initially less upon creativity and more upon learning a new skill.  In these projects you want to take it step by step with the child, giving them direction and sometimes asking them to do it your way while they are learning.  Then when it is mastered there will be lots of opportunity to use it creatively.  I'm talking about skills like photography, quilting, knitting, linoleum block printing, and calligraphy. For example, when you are trying to explore the block printing skills, it's very likely that your child, highly creative and used to being self directing in art, will be all charged up and want to do something wonderfully elaborate.  But you might want to ask that he create a very simple shape for that first block.  Then when he has gotten the hang of the process, he will have lots of opportunity to get creative and do what he wants.

My book has information to help you get your older kids started learning some of these interesting kinds of skills.   Sewing, jewelry making, printing, book making - these are all creative activities that the older child loves to learn about.

Excerpt from:
Everyday Art for Kids
Treasure Boxes & Memory Boxes



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• "More than just a craft book..."
• How parents can help
• Let the kids do the art
• Art for older kids
• Excerpt from:
  Everyday Art for Kids
  Treasure Boxes & Memory Boxes

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