What are the Top Tips for Helping Creative Children? As a Creative; Art student, Design Graduate, Maker, Fashion Designer, Product Designer, Illustrator, Writer what helped me growing up as a Creative Child?
For me my greatest pride as a 10 year old was the old diary I carried everywhere, which I filled with my copies of Disney characters. This was the beginning of my love for drawing & illustrating children’s characters. I got the bug from a competition in my village library where I can remember myself as a 5 year old devastated that I never won! A disappointment that never disheartened me but was the beginning of my journey as a creative child and then adult.
For me the five key elements that helped that creative child were;
- Support, encouragement and interest from others- my parents, my aunts, uncles, teachers. Every talent has an opportunity to flourish and grow if encouraged.
- Basic tools– as the second eldest with eight siblings my parents helped us all where they could to give us the basic tools for our interests and passions. In my case in the 70’s cheap affordable sketch books and drawing pads weren’t common place and affordable. But I relished using paper off cuts from my dads business old unused and unfilled diaries- they were my sketch books. The lined paper didn’t stop me from drawing.
3. Competition– my talents grew when I always had someone to compare myself against. Whether this was one of my best friends in 6th year at High School who later went on to study Sculpture at Art College who I constantly compared myself against and shared a common passion for art and drawing. To the primary school library books where I glimpsed a collection of four Disney catalogues that imprinted my earliest memory of my favourite Artist- Walt Disney. That was what I wanted to aspire to become!
4. Variety– an opportunity to try different genres, styles and areas of art. At Art College my foundation year was fabulous! Jam packed into one year I tried sculpture, ceramics, stain glass, graphics, illustration, fine art, fashion, jewellery and silversmithing! A reflection of my childhood surrounded by a Mother who taught us all to sew, knit, crochet, a Dad that loved drawing horses, and aunts and friends that would appear with bags full of paints and crafts and spend endless hours doing crafts with me and my siblings.
5. Knowing– that instinct for knowing what I loved, what I enjoyed what made my heart sing. That early recognition of what I would spend hours doing without effort. What reflected my introvert persona, my pleasure of working alone and the satisfaction and love for just creating.
If you think you have a creative child why not check out my books series ‘The Scribblers’. Do you have a child that is an budding artist, builder, creator what I call a ‘Doodle’. A child that loves making a mess, splashing, the outdoors, gardening a ‘Splat’. Or maybe a little one that loves numbers or words a ‘Digit’ or ‘Scribe’. What ever your child’s talents are support them with, encouragement, resources(tools), variety, competition and space to discover who they are ‘their love & talent’.
If you want yo learn more visit my Youtube page to see me live at work!
