Teach Art to Your Children v 2.9

Hi there! I just wrapped up filming half of the latest online course for artists...still a lot to go, but I am going to pop in today and offer you a Mixed Media for Kids lesson. We're on version 2.9 now..that means there are a lot of back issues available for you to peruse. I teach art to two six year old girls once a week. The lessons are no longer than 50 minutes each and we've covered so much ground! The girls love the time we spend together every week.

So many people ask me if I can teach art to their children. I don't offer group workshops, but I write these lessons so that anyone can follow along. Spend time with your children. With so many art and music programs being cut nationwide......the choice is simple.

Last week we started a two-part lesson on artist Mark Rothko. I picked Rothko for this lesson because I knew the girls could emulate his painting style without much difficulty. (I'm not down playing Rothko's genius by any means...) We began the lesson by cruising through Google images of Rothko's works. I picked no. 16 as our guide and I instructed the children how to mix paint.

For our process, we imagined the painting in layers. I asked the children what colors they thought where on the bottom of the painting. We started by painting the entire canvas panel light red. Next we penciled in the rectangles and started to fill them in with the colors of the sample painting.

Using acrylic paint and one paintbrush, the girls looked at Rothko's work and tried to copy his stroke style. We noticed that most of the strokes were in the same direction and that each addition of a new color allowed some of the previous color to peek through.

The 6 year olds have an attention span of about 50 minutes, especially after a long school day, so we'll pick up this lesson again today and add some finishing details. They are very excited to get these panels up onto their walls!

Thanks for visiting today. I hope you can spend a little time with your child creating every week...they will love you for it...much better than having a stranger teach them lessons in a group of kids..I think in that environment learning becomes another chore. To see all of the rest of the lessons, click here.