Art materials for kids

Here are some suggestions for stocking your art cupboard, from the basics--crayons, paint, markets, clay--to some of the newest art products on the market today.

Children love to make art. They'll grab every opportunity to doodle, scribble, paint, and make mud pies. They love mastering new tools and trying new techniques. Art gives children a way to express themselves--a safe way to communicate, invent, and discover the world. Yet it's often difficult for parents to choose art materials from the myriad available. What's a good value? What items are safe for youngsters? What will they use and enjoy the most?

Here are some suggestions for stocking your art cupboard, from the basics--crayons, paint, markets, clay--to some of the newest art products on the market today. The art materials described here can be used with children of all ages, although a few items are more appropriate for older kids.

PAINTS

Painting is pure joy! Children love to watch paints mix and blend together; to brush red into yellow and get orange; to make swirls, dots, splats, and drips with fingers, sticks, and brushes.

The best all-purpose paint for children is powered tempera, a powder that when mixed with water makes a brilliant, durable paint. Invest in six basic pigments (at $5.00 per 16-ounce jar)--red, yellow, blue, green, black, and white--and your young artists can mix any color they want. Because the paint is powdered, it won't cake, spoil, or turn sour, nor will it permanently stain clothes. Use the basic paint powder for many different kinds of paint:

* Thick poster paint (Shake it up in a plastic jar with a small amount of water.)

* Opaque watercolors (Think with lots of water.)

* Slippery finger paints (Mix 3 tablespoons cornstarch with 3 tablespoons water, then stir into 1 cup of just boiled water. Cool, then divide into small jars and color with powdered tempera.)

* Texture paints (Add salt, sand, or sawdust to poster paint.

* Shiny "acrylic-type" paints (Mix with white glue and water.)

Watercolors (roughly $3.00) are another basic childhood paint. While tempera is thick and opaque, watercolors are thin and transparent. They're easy enough to use that kids seldom need adult help. Even toddlers are able to take out watercolors whenever they feel like it, create what they want, and clean up all by themselves.

The best watercolors have rich, bright colors. Crayola and Prang make excellent, inexpensive sets. You'll need no more than eight colors, since the paints mix easily to create every hue imaginable. Paint with a good amount of water on heavy white drawing paper. Or, for a real treat, dip the paper into water first and then paint fuzzy, blending pools of color on the damp surface.

A handy addition to your painting supplies might be water-soluble acrylic varnish ($8.00 per 8-ounce jar), also called "gloss medium." This nontoxic varnish can be mixed with paints to make glazes, used as a brush-on glue for torn and cut paper collage, or brushed over any painting, clay, Play-Doh, or papier mache project to give it a shiny protective finish.

A variety of brushes ($3.00 and up) is essential to creative painting. Provide many different sizes, from tiny fine-tip art brushes to hefty 2-inch trim brushes from the hardware store. Offer your children both flat brushes and brushes that come to a point. Foam brushes, cotton swabs, and homemade brushes are fun, too. Let children choose their brushes. Teach them to clean the brushes properly and stand them in a jar, handle side down, to let them dry. For safety reasons, don't give brushes with pointed handles to very young children.

DRAWING AND COLORING

It's hard to beat Crayola crayons ($4.00 for a 48-crayon box) for value and quality. Most children, even toddlers, prefer the regular size to the thicker "jumbo" crayons. Buy a box with loads of colors; they're not expensive. When the crayons break, turn the broken pieces into new art tools. Peel away the paper and hold them on their sides for broad, sweeping impressions. Carve notches to make striped markers. Rub crayon pieces on paper that's held over weathered wood or tennis shoe soles to create textures. And finally, save tiny crayon pieces to make the multicolored crayon chunks described in Mary Ann Kohl's book Scribble All. "Place peeled crayon pieces in a muffin cup. Put muffin tin in a warm oven that's been turned off. Remove when crayons are squishy but not totally liquid. Place in freezer for 30 minutes, then remove muffin tin and pop out rainbow 'scribble cookies.'"

Colored pencils ($3.00) are wonderful tools when children (usually age five and up) want to draw with greater control and detail than offered by crayons. The very best pencils are Berol Prismacolors ($20.00 for a 24-pencil set)--expensive but long-lasting and worth every penny. These thick, soft leads are made with brilliant pigments. On paper, they make rich, vibrant lines that blend perfectly--much more fun than trying to use cheap pencils with faded, hard leads. A newcomer to the colored pencil line is the Watercolor Pencil Set ($5.00 for 12 pencils) from Crayola. This inexpensive set contains 12 colored pencils with rich, colorful leads that dissolve in water. Use the pencils to draw a picture, then brush over the drawing with water for beautiful painted effects. Draw on damp paper or dip the pencils into water before you draw. Lots of variety and lots of fun!

Felt-tip pens ($2.00 and up) for children should be water soluble and nontoxic. You'll find many inexpensive sets of "watercolor markers" in dime stores, supermarkets, and art supply stores. These markers work just fine, but they dry out quickly. If throwing away set after set of cheap plastic markers isn't your style, try Marvy Markers ($30.00 for 36 pens)--excellent pens in sets from 12 to 60 colors packaged in a colorful tin box. The strong marker tips draw fine lines when held upright, and a set will endure years of family use.

A box of "student-grade" pastel chalks ($9.00 for 24 sticks) will bring hundreds of colorful drawing adventures. Use chalks on brown-paper grocery bags or any rough-textured paper. Try using your chalk to draw on damp paper or on pieces of cotton fabric dipped in buttermilk. (Really! The milk protein "sets" the chalk into the cloth as it dries.) And what could be better than sidewalk chalk drawings on a summer morning? To save chalk drawings on paper, just spray them lightly with regular hairspray.

For painting and drawing, children love to use a wide variety of paper. Purchase "student-grade" white drawing paper at an art or school supply store for approximately $4.00 for 100 sheets. These 12-inch by 18-inch sheets can be cut smaller as needed. Construction paper comes in pads of assorted colors. For big sheets of paper, inquire at a newspaper office for "roll ends" of newsprint, usually 30 inches wide and as long as you need. Also, ask your local printing shop if you can have scraps and trim pieces. These papers are often thick and nicely textured. Use the inside of paper grocery bags, the backs of letters and flyers, paper cut in circles and squares as well as rectangles, and try long adding machine rolls. Each new size and shape will suggest a different type of art to your youngsters.

SCULPTING

Clay should be used as often as possible with children of all ages. Play-Doh is great, and there are plenty of recipes for making it yourself. Kids love to mix Kool-Aid powder into homemade play dough to color and scent it, but be sure young ones aren't tempted to taste the resulting mixture.

Keep bags of "plasticine" modeling clay (1-pound box with four colors, $2.00) handy. This smooth plastic clay never dries out. Kids can squish and model and squish for months until all the bright colors have mixed into brown. Remember that clay can be carved, too! Encourage young artists to use a paper clip or table knife to carve their lump of clay into an abstract shape.

Traditional potter's clay (25 pounds for $10.00) is great fun for children. Buy it in 10- or 25-pound bags at pottery shops or college bookstores. It's wonderfully muddy, so spread plenty of newspaper underneath your kids' workspace, or work outdoors on a warm day. Finished pieces will dry hard in the air but must be baked in a kiln to become permanent pieces of pottery. Unless you feel an irresistible urge to preserve your child's clay sculpture forever, just skip the kiln-firing step. Set unfired clay pieces in the garden and let them gradually weather back into the earth.

If you want an easy way to make permanent clay sculptures, Sculpey craft clay (2 pounds for $10) has the look and feel of porcelain but can be baked in a regular kitchen oven. Another new material, DAS Terracotta Clay (2.2 pounds for $9), doesn't even need an oven! It dries hard in the air and looks just like real flowerpot clay. Find these clays at any art supply store.

For older children (and their parents), the hottest new clay on the market is polymer clay, made by Fimo or Sculpey III (assorted sets, $12 to $16). Baked in a warm oven, these colorful clays transform into sturdy plastic; great for making beads, jewelry, toys, figures, and lots more. The folks at Klutz Press have created The Incredible Clay Book ($18.95) with 82 full-color pages of projects for kids and a set of eight colorful Fimo clays attached. What a treat!

Three-dimensional art is very important to children. Modeling and carving clay is one way to offer sculpture experiences; building with paper, wood, and other materials is another. Kids love to assemble towers, statues, and abstract sculptures, but they're often frustrated by waiting for white glue to dry. A low-melt hot glue gun ($6.00 to $16.00, plus glue sticks at 10[cnts.] each) might be the solution for your young artists. Regular glue guns melt sticks of plastic glue at 300-400[degrees]F, and the potential for burnt fingers makes these tools off-limits for youngsters. But the new low-melt guns melt glue between 200-230[degrees]F and are safe for kids eight and older.

A new and unusual way to create sculptures is through life casting. The Child Cast Kit ($13) from WINN Creative Corporation is easy, completely nontoxic, and loads of fun. Your child sticks his or her hand into a thick, pudding-like mixture that sets in minutes. After gently pulling the hand out, pour a sculpting cement into the mold. In an hour, peel away the "pudding" to reveal a perfect replica of your child's hand, right down to the fingerprints. It's an heirloom you'll treasure forever! You can make a hand holding a baseball, two small hands together, hands holding a picture frame, or even a foot.

RELATED ARTICLE: ART PRODUCTS TO AVOID

Children should use only materials that are nontoxic. You can be sure of this by looking for the "CP" or "AP" symbol on the label. If you don't see it, avoid that item. Teach your children to never put art tools or materials in their mouths, to avoid rubbing their eyes, to wash their hands after doing artwork, and to never eat food in their art area.

Avoid art materials packaged in glass bottles. Instead, look for plastic jars. Beware of art kits with small pieces such as beads or removable caps, particularly if you have a baby or toddler at home.

Don't buy cheap brands of modeling clay. The colors tend to rub off on hands, clothing, and every other surface.

Avoid children's scissors so dull they don't cut anything. Try them yourself; if you can't cut with them, how can the kids?

Do not provide only jumbo-sized crayons and paintbrushes for toddlers and preschoolers. These oversized materials are often more difficult for tiny hands to hold and control. Give children a choice of small, medium, and large brushes and crayons.

Avoid art books or projects that provide a model for children to mimic, especially an adult-made example. Art then becomes a process of seeing how close each child can come to a dictated idea of "perfection." Instead, leave it up to each child to decide what he or she wishes to create.

With these basic art materials, you'll be ready for years of creative art experiences with your children. Introduce them to the art projects you loved as a child and let them invent art on their own. Keep art activities open-ended. Show your children how to use art materials, then step back and let them create.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Books

Carlson, Laurie. Kids Create! Charlotte, VT: Williamson Publishing, 1991. $12.95.

Kohl, Mary Ann. Scribble Art. Bellingham, WA: Bright Ring Publishing, 1994. $14.95.

-- . Good Earth Art. Bellingham, WA: Bright Ring Publishing, 1991. $16.95.

--. Mudworks. Bellingham, WA: Bright Ring Publishing, 1989. $14.95.

Milord, Susan. Adventures in Art. Charlotte, VT: Williamson Publishing, 1993. $12.95.

Solga, Kim. Paint! Cincinnati, OH: North Light Publishing, 1991. 11.95.

--. Make Sculptures! Cincinnati, OH: North Light Publishing, 1991. $11.95.

--. Make Prints! Cincinnati, OH: North Light Publishing, 1991. $11.95.

Materials

To order art materials by mail, write for free consumer catalogs from:

Dick Blick Art Materials PO Box 1267 Galesburg, IL 61402

KidsArt PO Box 274 Mt. Shasta, CA 96067

Sax Arts & Crafts PO Box 51710 New Berlin, WI 53151

Kim SOLGA is a mom, artist, and writer living in northern California. She also owns KidsArt, a mail-order catalog specializing in art supplies for children.

COPYRIGHT 1996 Mothering Magazine
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group