In my e-book, Art Not Craft, I talk about changing the scale of an artwork as one way to mix up the creative experience for young children. Providing a series of teeny tiny canvases with cotton buds as paint applicators will result in a different work to a very large painting surface with paint rollers and large brushes.
Above: A train with passengers, tracks below and fireworks above.
Immy has recently really enjoyed exploring the creative potential of large sheets of paper taped up for drawing murals. I hang lengths of paper (from a roll) along the wall of our hallway and off she goes. She seems to enjoy the vastness of the drawing area, reaching up to make sure she fills all of the paper and drawing much more complicated images than I see when she uses regular A4 sized paper.
Above: Driving through the night in our new red car
If you don’t have a wall that you are brave enough to let your child work on indoors, you can always set up your mural surface on a large window or sliding door outdoors…
Why not try finding a space for BIG mural drawing (or painting) at your house this week. I would love to see photos of your results, so feel free to share your child’s creative endeavours by adding an image to the Childhood 101 Facebook page.
And, if you are looking for more creative inspiration for your children, you can read more about my e-book Art Not Craft: The Process of Learning Creatively here.
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Christie blogs at http://childhood101.com.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I really like this idea. Must go find a large roll of paper.
I couldn’t agree with you more, Christie! Over the past two weeks we’ve made teeny tiny paintings and a big outdoor mural. Scale changes everything! Great post.
Thank you, Rachelle. I loved your mini paintings
gotta go big! love it!
my mum used to give me water colors and let me paint my bedroom and then come in and wash it off the walls when I was done. It was so much fun
What a fantastic idea! Using ear buds to paint makes so much sense.. my two year old loves to paint but struggles with those large brushs and the tiny ones are terrible quality. Will try this tomorrow!