Julie Soul: [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome back. Have you ever sat down to do art with your kids and then you have this idea? You see this really, really cute project online, and you kind of really want it for your walls. Now, you're not going to actually tell that to your kids, but you're thinking, we're going to do this together, it's going to be magical, everyone's going to have fun, maybe we'll even play a little bit of music.
And we're all going to create this thing and it's going to look so pretty and everyone's going to be impressed when they come by. Okay. We're not actually saying any of these things out loud, but deep down we feel them as emotions. Don't we? We, we see this thing that other people or other kids have done and we kind of want it.
We kind of want our kids to do it. I know I do. You know, it's. It's, it's hard when you sit down and you have these expectations. You have these expectations that [00:01:00] your own art is going to look a certain way, and your kid's art is going to look a certain way, their attention span is going to be a certain way, the art supplies are going to behave a certain way, but none of this actually ever really happens the way that we want.
What actually happens is that first one might complain about the color of paper. Because you brought blue and they wanted green. I mean, how, how dare you? And then, can't we just not use paint today? Can't we use crayons or markers? Which is in direct contrast if you bring crayons or markers to the table.
I guarantee you that's the time they're going to ask for paint. Have you been there? I know I have. I've been there a lot. And a week ago I had an experience and I really wanted to bring to you on this [00:02:00] podcast episode exactly what happened and I wanted to be real about How I felt while I was going through this Art time because I want you to know that you're not alone So I have this idea that we were going to create some rainbow ghosts These rainbows are cute.
They're adorable. They are watercolor paper. You cut them into ghosts. I even had six of them. In fact, I was going to show them how to, how to fold the paper so that they could have six magical ghosts at once. And they were going to add really cute facial expressions. And then we were going to cut them out and put them on a piece of paper and they were going to look adorable.
Just adorable, right? Like rainbow, cute, happy, kind of spooky. But what actually happened is, well, my kids thought the watercolors were a great idea, but one of them said, how about if I just make One big ghost. Like, well, takes [00:03:00] away from the fact that I'm calling it a watercolor ghost family, but okay. Why not?
Said, said yes. Next one says, well, I think I'm only gonna make two. Again, okay, fine. And then... My oldest starts sketching out her idea of what a ghost is going to look like and it's definitely not my idea of a ghost It's a little bit pointier Not as, not as cute, but still okay. My youngest starts talking about creating an executive ghost.
And I'm not sure exactly what she was going for, but she was using a very, very serious tone, and I was not allowed to laugh about this. It's really hard! They're using a cute, adorable tone. It's hard not to laugh. But, there it was. And then, she decided to create... Two of them, [00:04:00] and they had little suits and like little pockets.
They almost looked like Men in Black ghosts, um, with sunglasses. So, definitely not cute expressions. In fact, I was told that these ghosts under no circumstances have cute expressions. They are very serious. And then she goes on to tell me that they've actually been sent here to investigate Donut theft. I mean, how can you not laugh?
So you can see though that no one, no one has created the cute ghosts that I wanted. Meanwhile, my oldest, she is creating her ghost. She's painting the watercolor paper. Same with my youngest. And my oldest is creating two, um, symmetrical ghosts. One's an ice ghost. One's a fire ghost. She's got her whole spin.
And. If I looked at the three of them next to each other, [00:05:00] I could say I failed this assignment. They use watercolors, but not necessarily the same color of background paper, not the same colors, not the same cuteness, not the same idea of having a family of little ghosts. Um, just totally different. So Did I fail?
And that's why I wanted to be here today to talk about this. What actually did happen during this event? Well, first, they did both create watercolor paper and they used the same technique as I did. They learned one new thing. The second, they added their own creative spin. The third thing that happened is they both chatted the entire time telling stories about what these ghosts were doing, what they were up to, and they had a great [00:06:00] time.
If I use those three criteria, I would actually say that it was a resounding success. So the next time that you feel like you're not quite sure if you're doing it right, I want you to think about these three things. One, Are they learning something new? Sometimes when we sit down at art time, there's a lot to learn in art.
And I want you to think back to when you were driving a car. And they told you that you're supposed to have your hands in a certain place. You're supposed to watch your, um, speedometer. You're supposed to watch your gas tank. You're supposed to make sure that you watch your mirrors. Don't forget this mirror.
Don't forget to also watch this to make sure that your car's not overheating. And even if you wanted to change the radio, I mean, if you're as old as me, you had a radio and you would go to change it and it wasn't on the steering wheel, you'd have to lean a little bit. And then you'd swerve a little bit because it all felt like a [00:07:00] lot.
It all felt huge. And this is kind of how art is too. So if we come at our kids, our students with the idea that they're supposed to learn everything, it's overwhelming. So choose one thing to learn. It might be a watercolor technique. It might be learning how to draw a leaf, but did they learn something new?
Just that one thing. The second thing. To think about at art time is did they feel like they could add their own creative spin did they feel? Like they were actually artists like they could actually create if you've ever Taught kids art before you know that the second you introduce a topic you're gonna have them ask you Challenge you to do something different So if you say we're going to draw bunnies today, you will have kids say if you're teaching in a larger classroom [00:08:00] Well, can I draw a cat?
Can I draw a dog? Can I draw a dragon? Can I make it blue? Can I make it bigger? Can I make it smaller? This is them looking for that permission. So the first thing was, did they learn something new? And the second one is, did they feel like they could add their own creative spin? And when you're only focused on that one new thing, Like, such as that watercolor technique, it starts to feel a little bit more relaxing knowing that they can create their own thing.
And the third and final and most important thing is, did they have fun during art time? If you sit down with them and you're having them recreate a famous artwork done by an adult hundreds of years ago, it might look cool to us if they recreate it, but it's not fun to them. They want to do dragons. They want to draw the bug that they saw outside.
They want to be able to draw their cat, their pet hamster. [00:09:00] So did they have fun during art time? So when I think back at all these things with my youngest talking about donut stealing, um, I don't know if ghosts stole the donuts or something else, and fire and ice ghosts. Did they add their own creative spin, cutting it in unique ways?
And did they learn something new? Yes, they learned how to use this fun watercolor technique to create the paper. These are the three things I encourage you to use to monitor art time with your kids to determine if it was a success. And the last thing that I want to say is, sometimes it doesn't feel like a success.
It feels like everything went wrong and that happens and that's okay too. That doesn't mean that you can't try again. Tomorrow was something new. [00:10:00] It doesn't mean that you'll never do art again. It doesn't mean that your kids hate art. It doesn't mean that you've ruined them for life. It just means that one day Was kind of not a great day.
And sometimes that happens, happens with art, happens with a lot of things. So I hope this helps the next time you sit down to create with your kids and remembering those three things. And I would absolutely love it if you would reach out to us and let us know. Tag us at SoulSparkletsArt. Let us know where you're listening from.
It absolutely makes my day and Makes me feel like I know that there's somebody out there. Okay everyone, till next time.
