W+J Family Blog ·

Budding Artist

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 by Chris

Natalie’s Monster Drawing Complete with arms, hands, legs, feet, a body, a head, and hair.

Natalie has always enjoyed art projects of all kinds including crayons, markers, watercolors, stamps, finger paints.

We usually exude enthusiasm for her art, but try to avoid overtly praising the finished work. For children, art is about process, not product, so instead we engage her with questions like “Wow, look at all those colors you used. Can you tell me about them?” Even from a young age when her drawings appeared to be just scribbles, Natalie would point out different areas that she intended to represent certain things or people.

In general, praising her effort helps build her self-image and confidence. Instead of telling her she’s a great artist we’ll just say “Look at all those squiggles, it looks like you worked really hard on that.”

Lately, her drawings have started to become more recognizable—like in this drawing of a monster she drew over the weekend. We were both really impressed with her rendering, but instead one of us just said something simple and observational like “Look at that monster you made!”

Natalie grinned widely and replied, “I’m so proud of myself!!!”

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