Encouraging Art

I share your impulse to let art be an open-ended process for your child. Young children take in the experience of color so deeply, and one way to encourage this is to use block rather than stick crayons. Stockmar makes wonderful beeswax block crayons that are sold by many Waldorf on-line stores (see www.waldorfshop.net <http://www.waldorfshop.net/> for connections to several of them).

By using the side of the crayon, your child will be less likely to take up drawing objects and more likely to be interested in experiencing the colors—and the way the form arises from the colors. Here is where you come in: when you color with your child, model using the broad strokes. And if you do draw an object, it will be less formed and will have been suggested by the colors.

You can also respond obliquely to your child’s requests to draw things for him with something like, “Mama is just playing with the colors today.” On the other hand, actually making a simple book for him with one familiar object per page can become a treasure, as something you have made with love. But don’t let him push you around—have fun and deflect his demands.

You also mentioned that your child wants to paint realistic objects and is frustrated by not being able to do so. Again, changing the medium can eliminate this situation and give him many years of wonderful color experience. By using a wet-on-wet technique, the watercolors remain fluid, floating on the surface of the paper. The book Echoes of a Dream has lovely, color illustrations of both the painting and the coloring techniques I’ve just described. My book, You Are Your Child’s First Teacher, also has a chapter devoted to encouraging your child’s artistic development in these ways.