Being someone who loved art at school, I’ve always looked forward to enjoying creative pursuits with my children – whether it be painting, story-telling, craft or just imaginary play.
So when the little man was about a year old, I eagerly went out and bought crayons, sponge rollers, paint and an apron. Oh the glorious afternoons we would spend, I thought. Drawing pictures! Getting messy with paint! Being Creative! In reality, I spent 10 minutes setting up the newspapers and paint; he took 50 seconds to rip the paper, sit in the paint and lose interest in the whole thing. Even today, the little man would much rather run around in the dirt or sit in a paddling pool than do craft. And I’m fine with that. It takes half an hour to set up craft activities and clean up the mess afterwards, compared to 10 seconds to strip him down to his nappy and send him outside.
But when the little man gets a little older, I’m looking forward to exploring this magazine with him (pictured left).
Big Kids Magazine is a 60-page, biannual contemporary arts publication for children. With kids on the editorial team (the senior editor is eight years old) and artists invited to contribute, it consists of various projects where children and artists collaborate together to create amazing things. The aim is to provide a platform for both children and their parents to engage with art together (and hopefully inspire homemade creations). Creator Lilly Blue shares her vision on Girl With A Satchel:
“We love the idea that parents and children share the BIG pages and that they might provoke conversations and side-by-side creativity. It is interactive at heart and we love that kids draw directly on the pages to immediately personalise it and make their unique mark.”
“Hopefully these collaborative projects inspire similar projects to be created between siblings or parents and kids on kitchen tables or bedroom floors.”
I love this idea. I’m also looking forward to taking the little man to the Museum of Contemporary Art to do the Art Safari workshops. I helped out on this program years ago, while doing an internship at the MCA, and had so much fun.
What kind of creative activities did you enjoy growing up? How do you encourage your kids to be creative?
I haven’t had much luck painting wise (apart from finger painting) but Marcus does love collage and stickers, so we do a lot of that on rainy days. I make paste with flour and water or i use good old clag. He likes to help when cooking by stirring and adding things. I make playdough occasionally and he loves sticking different objects into it. I just bought these great crayons from ELC -
http://www.kidscentral.com.au/p-2814-my-first-crayons.aspx
and they are fantastic as they are easy for him to hold and don’t snap into little pieces.
I agree that it can be a lot of effort setting up though!
I have to admit I’m not much of a ‘let’s do craft at home kiddos’ basically because I hate mess.
But I came across this fantastic smorgasbord of make-your-own craft fiddly bits and I might just dabble in some craft with the kiddies! Even considering bath paints, something I have previously balked at the thought of…
Here’s the link: http://www.thedailybuzz.com.au/2011/11/make-your-own_homemade_crayons_play-doh_chalk_fingerpaint/
Just lovely!
Give him another year or so Soph:) my dd LOVES any arty crafty thing and she hasn’t needed much encouragement from me, I’m the opposite and it’s me that needs the encouragment lol! She has a few craft/art books which I’ve had since she was little and these days she will pick it up and find projects she can do herself. (when she was younger I used to do it with her obviously)