Home Tips 3 Tips on How to Teach Your Kids to Paint – A Beginner’s Guide

3 Tips on How to Teach Your Kids to Paint – A Beginner’s Guide

by Tracy Finke

Painting is one of the activities children enjoy the most. It covers both of the aspects they enjoy, having enough creative freedom and getting messy at the same time. Furthermore, it is a process that will help them develop their cognitive skills much faster. You should encourage them for all these reasons.

As is the case with any skill out there, it is important to understand that it requires time for them to develop it further. No matter how talented your little one is, you cannot expect this talent to shine in the earliest of years. Still, that doesn’t mean that enhancing their painting skills is not possible.

Thankfully, there are numerous ways your children can learn how to paint these days. Not only that, they can do it by using multiple techniques that will help them develop their skills in the future. If you want to take a look at one of these, visit winniespicks.com.

However, the first steps are crucial. We want to discuss some of them today.

Prepare the Environment

Source: nourishingourchildren.org

Before your child is ready to start painting, it is crucial to make an environment that will meet the child’s needs and preferences. Not to mention that this environment should consist of all the measures of precautions that can help with any potential mistakes that can occur for whatever reason.

For instance, you will need to have a water station near that place, just in case some colors are spilled by accident. Furthermore, get all the essential drop cloths that can help with cleaning these stains. Still, you should pay attention to all the paints that cannot be cleaned as easily.

Younger children’s motor skills are simply not developed yet. For that reason, it is important to have all of these measures prepared. Otherwise, you can presume that these stains can leave some bad traces in your apartment. We are certain nobody likes when something like this happens.

Creative Freedom

Creative freedom is something that we’ve mentioned several times in this article of ours. We cannot stress why it is important to provide your child with this opportunity. When we say this, we mean that you shouldn’t put any sort of pressure or limitations. Let them express themselves as they see fit.

Of course, the first paintings they make will not be artistic in any way. Still, we don’t believe that these first couple of works should be underestimated. The best way to describe them is to say that it is some sort of foundation for all the skills and experience they will obtain in the years to come.

In fact, encourage them to do whatever they like. With their skills being upgraded over time, chances are that you will see massive progress one day. We believe that this massive progress comes slowly, but when it occurs, it will immediately provide an idea about how much your child is talented.

What are the Crucial Steps?

Now, let’s take a look at the crucial steps in enhancing your kid’s painting skills.

1. Using Pencils

Source: todaysparent.com

As you will certainly agree using pencils is a logical step. We can see that there are many children out there who use pencils when they are young, usually when they are three or four years old. But do not make a mistake by believing they cannot make a mess by using a pencil.

There are many examples of children using pencils to draw on the wall. While it may sound silly at first, it can turn into quite a big mess. Without any doubt, it will put a smile on your little one’s face. Thankfully, you can use an eraser to clean these drawings quite efficiently.

When it comes to using pencils and erasers at the same time, it will provide your kids with additional creative freedom. They can erase whatever they do not like, and they can make another move. That’s why we believe that this first step is crucial for the further development of their skills.

2. Water Colors

Source: artnews.com

After your child becomes competent enough to use a pencil, then the next step would be to give it a new gift, watercolors. There’s practically no person out there who doesn’t have many good memories about using these in schools. So, there’s no reason why your kid shouldn’t have the same memories, right?

It needs to be said that watercolors provide much-needed freedom. When you compare it with using pencils, it becomes obvious that the number of options is much higher. Once again, we want to say that this is a great chance for your little one to get messy.

3. Oil Painting

Source: artincontext.org

The third and last of these initial steps is introducing your child to oil painting. Of course, kids need to be of a certain age when they are ready to use these efficiently. Usually, oil paintings are used by children who are in the first grade. At that moment, their motor skills are developed to a certain degree.

Plus, it is rather obvious that this method is the most popular one out there by far. It is because of the blending of all the colors and creating some unique shades. We can draw an analogy between creating these colors and creating the freedom we’ve already mentioned. It is a one-of-a-kind experience.

It is possible to use a couple of frames to help your kids with learning how to draw straight lines. If your child is interested in having much more freedom, and they are completely competent to perform it, then you can remove these frames. That’s why we believe oil painting is a significant step.

In Conclusion

As you can see, teaching your kid how to paint is a process that requires a lot of patience, both on the behalf of your child and you. Since young kids usually do not have it, parents should focus on it. In this article of ours, we’ve provided you with all the relevant factors that can help with this process. We are sure you will find these insights helpful.