Art and a Child’s Brain

Making Art: There's a Lot Happening!

“Creativity in and of itself is important for remaining healthy, remaining connected to yourself and connected to the world,” according to Dr. Christine Strang neuroscientist at University of Alabama Birmingham. It turns out there’s a lot happening in our minds and bodies when we make art—any kind of art. Art enhances brain function and well-being whether a person suffers from PTSD or a young child is developing a healthy brain, fine motor skills, creativity, emotional balance, a sense of accomplishment, or relieving stress. What does that mean for families? Provide some art basic art supplies in the home and sit down and do art with the kids in happy times, sad, or angry times.

Free Form

  Art supplies don’t have to be extensive or expensive.

 Young children can have a box or cabinet of computer paper, colored construction crayons, markers, paints, Playdough, child scissors tape, glue, and a place to display their art. Some children like postcard size paper rather that big sheets. Some like a piece of paper the size of a table to keep adding to the scene and the story.

Art Supplies Are Everywhere!

A few family members can sit down and join the little ones with soft music on, someone reading a book out loud, or the pleasure of silence and room for conversation from time to time.

 In free form art the artists are totally in charge, making what they want. If anyone is stuck, someone can suggest a topic to get the brain going: creating something happy or a recent family drama. It can be a walk in the woods, beach, hills, along the lake, in the snow.  What is your favorite, most beautiful, most quiet, safest place to be? Do you want to paint sunshine, a forest, some animals, spaghetti, a cherry pie, peanut butter sandwich, sledding, dolphins jumping out of water, or grandpa? 

Mandalas

  Some children enjoy premade designs. Mandalas are beautiful art circles that are contained within a square and are found in most cultures. In their most basic form, mandalas are circles arranged into sections that are all organized around a single, central point. Mandala coloring books are found in most stores in the book section and are part of soothing art therapy for all ages. 

Transform Ordinary Minds into Enlightened Ones!

The purpose is to help transform ordinary minds into enlightened ones and to assist with healing. Families find them relaxing and lots of fun. Check “How to Draw a Mandala” at art-is-fun.com.

   There are many rewards of art in the family.  It activates the hypothalamus and orbitofrontal cortex which are parts of brain associated with appetite regulation, calculating risk, impulse control, and detection of social rules.  For more see grandparentsteachtoo.blogspot.com: wnmufm.org/Learning Through the Seasons live and pod casts; Facebook, Pinterest, and You Tube since 2009.

Photos: Fran Darling, fdarling fotos

Windows Inspire Delightful Cookies

Observe Colors and Light and Reflections

Have you ever taken young children to admire the brilliant colors of stained glass windows close up and watched them touch the colors with wonder? They are delighted by the light reflecting on their hands and often like to stand in the colors on a bright day. Children also love to make these easy and edible stained glass cookies all winter long.

Cookie Recipe

  Here are the Ingredients:  2/3 cup butter, 1  1/4 cup white sugar,1 teaspoon vanilla extract,2 eggs,3 cups all-purpose flour,2 teaspoons baking powder,1/2 teaspoon salt,3 Tablespoons  milk,40 fruit flavored hard candies (Life Savers or Jolly Ranchers melt well.)Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cover baking sheets with tin foil sprayed with cooking oil. Cream together butter and sugar in a large bowl. Stir in vanilla and eggs.In another bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt. 

Make Stained Glass Cookies

Add to egg mixture alternately with milk. Chill the dough and take out only what you need for a few cookies at a time. It will be easier to form cookies. On a well-floured surface, roll the dough 1/4 inch thick. To make window frames, cut into 1/4 to 1/2inch-wide strips.  Form into stained glass window frames with geometric designs inside. You can also make stained glass cut- out cookies. Cut out large cookies and take out dough in small areas and replace with candy.

 Keep colors separate, place candy in double plastic bags and a thick grocery bag. Help children carefully crush into smaller pieces with a hammer. Place candy pieces in the holes. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Ten -minute cookies will be crunchier. Check on them often as they bake, however. Cool well on baking sheet until candy is hard. Carefully lift cookies off the baking sheet with a pancake turner and by curling the tin foil slightly. 

Stained Glass Drawings

  To makestained glass style paper windows fold a black 

Make Stained Glass Drawings

piece of construction paper about 5”X 8” in half. Think of how you wish the window to look when the fold is open. Draw guidelines for groups of triangles, circles, rectangles, or a picture on the folded paper and help children cut out the shapes.  When you open the folded paper both sides will be symmetrical. Glue wax paper one side covering the holes you made. Paint one waxed paper section at a time with white glue and cover with one-inch square pieces of different colored tissue paper. You may overlap colors to make a stained glass look more realistic. If you want a shine, paint on Modge Podge. When dry, hang in a window. For more fun with children see grandparentsteachtoo.blogspot.com, wnmufm.org/Learning through the Seasons live and podcasts; Facebook and Pinterest.

Helping Children be Happy Artists

Similarities And Symmetry Help Artists

Objects in nature have two similar sides when a line is drawn down the middle so the sides cover each other when folded in half. That is one kind of symmetry.  It is sometimes difficult and frustrating for children to draw those two sides free hand to their satisfaction. One side is fatter or skinnier than the other and after a lot of erasing they are left with a paper whole and tears.

  Adults can help by teaching children a few tricks with one of the most joyful symmetrical shapes -- the heart. Fold a piece of paper exactly in half and crease it. Draw half a heart on the creased side of a paper so when they cut along the lines and open up the fold they will have a perfectly symmetrical heart. Children can use rounded nose scissors for safety. They can practice making fat, skinny, and little hearts to glue on cards, a string mobile, or trace onto a picture.

More symmetry

 To make shamrocks you can follow the above procedure by drawing half a shamrock on a creased paper. However, there is another way. If you look at a shamrock you will notice it is really three identical hearts strategically placed on a chunky rectangle. Again show children how to make three hearts with the symmetry – fold method. Then cut out one chunky rectangle and glue on the hearts. 

Folding Helps Hand-Eye Coordination

   Butterflies, other animals, space ships, crosses, and humans are symmetrical when observed from a certain angle. People can be drawn this symmetrical fold way by drawing half a person on a creased paper, cutting it out, and tracing the person on a picture. Snowflakes, however, are six sided and cannot be made from a simple folded square or rectangle.

  The folding technique may help until their eye- hand coordination matures and objects turn out closer to the way they imagine—symmetrical. You have helped children get over a little developmental drawing bump..

Emberley Rescues

  Another suggestion, for a basic generic symmetrical human: draw an oval face, a little square neck, and a rectangle or trapezoid body. Draw four long rectangles for arms and

legs, a left shoe oval slightly turned left and right shoe as a smaller oval shoe front. The hands have thumbs slightly pointed away from the fingers next to the legs while fingers tightly fit together.

Try a Step-By-Step Approach

Ed Emberley has more step by step drawing ideas in his books. He shows how to make people look like they are moving, too. Children can also experiment making the limbs bend by studying their action figures.

   If your children are not frustrated or they don’t want to improve at this time let them be. Art should be joyful. For more ideas see grandparentsteachtoo.blogspot.com, wnmufm.org/ Learning Through the Seasons, Pinterest, and Facebook.

PHotos: Fran Darling, fdarling fotos

Fun and Thoughtful Fall Art

Make a Family Tree

Late fall is a good time to do family activities with small children that teach kindness and caring for one another, especially for family members who may be ill, alone, or lonely.  This Thanksgiving project creates a family tree full of pictures and messages.
  You’ll need some brown wrapping paper, colored paper, children’s scissors, glue, markers, crayons, and family and pet photos.
Caring Family Tree
  Draw a tree with a trunk and branches using markers and crayons. The tree can be very large or the size of two pieces of computer paper.  It can be sent in pieces in a large envelope ready to be put together at its destination.
  Young children will enjoy coloring the bark and adding squirrel holes. To make leaves, trace hands on colored paper and cut them out. Print family members’ names on the leaves with messages of love, sentences remembering good times, and reasons to be thankful.  Children can dictate sentences about  good times with relatives. Fun and humorous times like swimming, fishing, or playing ball will bring smiles to someone who needs them.

Glue Photographs to the Leaves

  Draw
  Children  can add drawings or glued on photographs to the leaves. Do this activity over a few days in very short periods of time since children need time to think and draw. Take a break often and do an active fun activity or snack and read if you want good quality drawings.
   Adapt this idea for different ages.Very young children can make circles and color them or add string for balloon. They can trace their little hand on a bigger leaf.
All ages can dictate short sentences to an older child about something fun they did with Grandpa and Grandma like visiting the fair, attending a college football game, or cooking.  It’s a good chance for older children to practice penmanship.
 Include the family pet.  They can make paw prints on the leaves. Children may add a few messages of love from the pets. Trace their paws or if you’re adventurous, dip their paws in poster paint.

Write Messages on the Leaves

If mailing a tree, a few leaves may be cut into large puzzle pieces while keeping the rest the intact. Relatives offer need help putting up the family tree so offer to visit and bring along the children. Young children can be taught how to visit someone who is ill and what to say and do to bring them comfort.
  Children may want to add little extra decorations like a squirrel, a few birds, or bird’s nest in future visits.
  The leaves may also have quotes from famous people like Mark Twain or Yogi Berra. “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” “Take it with a grin of salt.”
Photos: Fran Darling fdarling fotos 
More Ideas and Activities....See the authors’ book “Learning Through the Seasons” at area bookstores and grandparentsteachtoo.org. For more help to prepare young children for success in school see the authors’ web site: www.grandparentsteachtoo.org. Also check our audio Podcasts WNMU Radio, 90; Youtube video activities; and join us on Pinterest

Helping to Calm Children

Sometimes both children and adults need a soothing time, a time to calm down from whatever agitates them during the day.

Drawing Time is Soothing

Research indicates drawing Zentangles and Mandalas may enhance this time. Coloring with markers, pencils, and crayons helps set the mood for talking softly, silence, crying a bit, working through problems, and hugs.
  Repetitive movement and making something creative and beautiful engages both sides of the brain.  The creativity comes from selecting colors that go together according to individual’s tastes. The tactical part of the brain plans and decides the design.  Both parts keep the mind from wandering to worries and other stressful emotions.  There are intricate Zentangle and Mandala-type designs in coloring books or you can make your own. Check out Google images and You Tube, too.
Zentangles can Calm
   Picture a piece of paper with a few lines, curves, or shapes that may be made from a thick black marker. Many thinner straight or curved lines surround, fill in, and connect the original shapes until the entire page is filled with lines and white spaces.

Drawing Zentangles and Mandalas

 With young children, start on 4-inch square thick paper that won’t tear easily. It will be easier to cover completely with designs. Show them how to use a black crayon, marker, or pen to make a design or several smaller ones, several numbers, their initials, geometric figures like circles or flower petals scattered around the paper. Then add smaller lines and curves to connect and fill. Zentangle usually stays black and white.
 Mandalas can Soothe
  Mandalas go a little further. Some people start with a circle and make a series of circles around the inside of the circumference.  Then they start another row of smaller circles around the circumference and continue making smaller and smaller circles until they reach the center. Now they fill in the shapes with thinner straight lines, curved lines, concentric circles, or patterns (repeating designs) until the entire page is filled and all of the shapes are connected in some way. The effect is like a Tiffany stained glass rose window. A large square, rectangle or triangle can be divided the same way. Artists often start with thick lines, but there are no rules. Anything can be incorporated into the larger design.
   Besides soothing people, Zentangles and Mandalas help children develop printing skills, eye-hand coordination and a sense of color.

Develop Hand-eye Skills

Most Mandalas have symmetry, balance, and color added to spaces. There are no requirements though and that’s the point.
  For more about Zentangle see information on Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. For Mandala books see Engelbreit’s “Color”, or Marotta’s “Animal Kingdom” for older children and adults.
Photos, Fran Darling, fdarling fotos

More Ideas and Activities....See the authors’ book “Learning Through the Seasons” at area bookstores and grandparentsteachtoo.org. For more help to prepare young children for success in school see the authors’ web site: www.grandparentsteachtoo.org. Also check our audio Podcasts WNMU Radio 90; Youtube video activities; and join us on Pinterest