Lesson 1 – Introduction To Teaching Art

Parents, what do you want for your young artist? 

I easily found the answer to that question for my own children. I wanted them to be happy! I’m sure that is your goal as well. 

Happiness means different things to different people. Imagining a happy artist, brings up a lot of images, most of them pretty ridiculous. But a happy artist is not someone blissfully sitting in a tiny room painting all day and going hungry. It’s also not necessarily having a huge career – either as a commercial artist or becoming a famous painter. 

We don’t tell children to not attempt football because they might not make it to the NFL. We don’t discourage short kids from playing basketball. We allow children to dance, play instruments, and participate in all kinds of activities simply for the fun of it. For joy. Yet with art, there is this weird fear, that unless you are obviously so talented you’re going to be the next Picasso, you should never even try. We also erroneously believe that artists are born with some kind of genius gene, they have an ethereal muse, and they have to be full of angst too.  

One thing I have noticed, is that artists never talk about “practicing” enough. There is an idea that “real” artists don’t need practice, or even worse, if you have to look at something to draw it, you’re not a “real” artist. I’ve heard art teachers actually say, “I never tell my students anything, so I don’t get in the way of their creativity”. 

Can you imagine a piano teacher saying that? 

Art is full of misconceptions and myths that I reveal in my book, 9 Art Myths Totally Busted So Artists Can Be Free. I give this book away at no cost, because I am on a crusade to educate people about artists. If you don’t have it, here is the Download Page.

So before we even begin this course, I want you to chill. Parenting is a journey, but having an artist doesn’t make it suddenly impossible, or more mysterious. You can totally teach and mentor your artists, and the proof is this: you are putting in the work right now! You’re taking a fantastic course on how to do it. 

You’ve got this, so let’s get started.  

In this first lesson, I’m going to explain the difference between encouraging art training and damaging art training. There isn’t much in-between these two extremes. You’ll also learn some basics about artists, and how they learn. 

There are 3 tools you need to teach any artist.  

You must… 

1. Use proven training methods
2. Know how to encourage the right way
3. Have a great set of lesson plans 

The first two tools are what I’m going to teach you right now, in this 8-lesson course. The lesson plans are in our curriculum.  

You have everything you need. 

True Encouragement 

As a child of an artist, a brother of an artist, an artist myself, and a parent of two artists, I have a unique perspective. Even my aunts and several ancestors were artists.  

When I was young, my mom wanted me to enjoy my art and feel good about myself, so she encouraged me a lot. Good encouragement is different than constant praise, and my mom understood this. Instead of just saying everything I did was amazing, she said that I, “could always do amazing things”. I know that sounds like a small difference, but it was huge. She believed it too, and of course, I knew she did. Kids absolutely know if you are being honest.  

That kind of encouragement gave me the confidence to work at it, and excel at art in every arena I chose. 

When I became a parent, my goal was to impart that same kind of confidence to my own children. Unlike my mom, who was forced to go to secretarial school, I graduated from art school – at the top of my class, with honors. Where she didn’t know anything about materials or techniques, I was well equipped. I had the tools and information for real art training.  

With my kids, I was able to remove a lot of the frustrations that so many children experience. Things as simple as not using the horrible brush that comes in those little watercolor cases. Things as complex as advanced color theory.  

I also discovered young children could understand a lot more than I expected.  

I took these discoveries and built on them. I created my art lessons based on 5 things:  

1. What I learned in art school
2. What I learned as a professional – a designer, illustrator, and painter 
3. What I learned as a parent
4. What I learned as a children’s pastor
5. What I learned as an art teacher 

Some basics about kids who are artists, that you need to know. 

Kids want to be treated with respect.  

Kids may not think like adults, but they like to be spoken to like adults. They don’t like to be treated like they are “little”. I have told my teachers to never tousle a kid’s hair. We don’t do that to adults, so it says to a child that you think they’re “little”. One day, a teacher came to me and said, “oh boy were you ever right about that! I forgot and tousled [his] hair, and he looked so upset.” 

Teaching to the age 

Kids want to prove themselves. Especially before they turn 8. I came up with a 6 and 7 year old program that allows that age to show off. They have little interest in learning something new. If you say, “I’m going to teach you how to draw a cloud…” you’ll get interrupted; “No no no. I already know that. Let me show you how I draw clouds!” 

They simply like to do the work. “Look what I did!” and then they’re off to the next one. And the next one, and the next. 

A child’s brain undergoes a dramatic change between 7.75 and 8.25 years. This change is totally physical, even though it affects understanding, and that means you never see it early no matter how mature or gifted a child may be. After this shift in perception, a child is suddenly aware of their place in relation to others and they start to compare their work. They can look at their work and see for the first time, that it needs help; that they need help. That’s when you can say something like, “what do you not like about this?” And, “today we’re going to learn how to make your shadows look better”. 

So we teach everything about art to ages 8 and up; all the things I didn’t learn until I went to college art school. And you know what? It has really paid off. 

In the words of one of my student’s parents, “she’s learning at age 9, what I did in [college] art school, and she’s getting it!” 

There are big problems in art teaching systems that art teachers fall prey to.

We usually see 3 different solutions, none of which work. 

Kids tend to get so frustrated that they often quit art altogether. 

1. Abstract information instead of Concrete

Children can understand the essential concepts but they do not have the abilities that adults do, to analyze and retain abstract information. They need it to be concrete. The crazy thing is, almost all of art concepts are presented with very abstract ideas and weird, unfamiliar terms, so it’s really hard to take traditional art lessons and present them to children.

This is why many art lessons fail to train young artists. If a teacher uses the same methods they learned as an adult in art school – then the young person is left frustrated, unable to understand what the teacher is actually saying. It’s over their head. 

They decide that kids can’t learn these things. But it’s only the way it’s presented that is not working. 

2. Skip the Hard Stuff 

That’s why most lesson plans just skip the training, and copy some well-known old master’s painting. Kids enjoy it, in the moment. They take a pretty picture home. Parents swoon.  

But the tragic truth is this; they don’t know how to make their own art. They begin to think there must be something wrong with them, since they can’t make their work look “right” on their own. 

3. Show and No Tell 

If a teacher simply shows artists what they do without explaining how they did it, you have the same result; frustration and abandonment. This is also common, because artists do things intuitively and most don’t really understand how they did it. 

It makes me upset that art instruction often makes artists feel like failures when they’re not. The system is the real failure. 

I have made it my mission to change that system. I love seeing happy artists. 

Every single thing I’ve learned as an adult has been translated to the kids’ level. I have agonized over how to present complicated ideas in simple ways. I have spent years trying to overcome every obstacle to learning art techniques and concepts. 

Our students really get it too. Even advanced concepts and techniques – faster and easier than I ever did. The result has been an amazing curriculum that not only reproduces college level art school, but makes it work for kids.  

Art teachers are the Key. 

The outcome for any art student depends greatly on the instruction they get, and getting a great teacher has always been the luck of the draw. 

There are two sides to the coin of an ineffective art teacher; they either scold instead of directing, or they offer constant praise – instead of directing. 

Teachers often brutally criticize students. In college, there is a method called the Critique, where a student puts their work in front of the class and everyone tells them all the things that they think are wrong about it. As you can imagine, this causes most students to quit art school and never touch art again for the rest of their lives. Sometimes teachers bring this idea into kids’ classrooms. 

Even when you find a pretty good teacher, who is encouraging and fun, they often only teach their own personal style. This was the method Bob Ross used. It is really hard to direct a student to learn without pushing your own way of doing it – your own style. The good news is that means that if you’re not an artist, you don’t have this problem. I’ll bet you didn’t expect to hear that not being an artist could actually help you teach art better! 

Then there are art teachers who really do know how to teach well, but don’t have good art training. They are often insecure about how to help students because they know they can’t draw or paint very well. What they don’t realize, is that the most important aspect of teaching is encouragement and methods. If you find and use a great curriculum, one that really teaches a young art student how to do things, then you have a winning combination. 

Sadly, there are few opportunities for children to get great art training. It’s rare to find an encouraging teacher who is competent, and also able to teach without imparting personal style.  

To me, that meant I should make sure that my curriculum trained the teacher in how to train the students. I added demonstrations, handouts, worksheets, slideshows, and pinboards. I carefully selected projects and reference that supports each lesson so they lead young artists to a winning finish. There are dialogs that you can read or paraphrase, that make you instantly sound like an experienced art teacher. 

What I ended up with, is a curriculum that anyone can use – to become that Great Art Teacher. 

And now we’re bringing our great art instruction to your home. Right now, we’re about to turn you into that Great Art Teacher. 

You know your goal: a happy artist. Now you’re well on the way to securing the 3 tools needed to direct your artist towards that goal. 

1. Methods to teach – You’re learning them now.
2. How to Encourage – You’re learning this now.
3. Lesson Plans that work – You have them at Homeschooling Art.