art supplies

We love summertime around here because we have a lot more time to free our imaginations and unleash some of that pent up creativity.  

Warning: I'm climbing up on a soapbox here for a moment.  

BUY YOUR KIDS REAL ART SUPPLIES!!!!  

A lot of the supplies that kids get stuck with are crap so cheaply made that they strip all of the fun out of the process let alone the results.  The first thing I want you to do, the very moment you finish reading this post, is to go to wherever you keep your kid's crafting stash, and chuck any brush that came with a watercolor set; the plastic bristles crap just scrape the paint across the paper.  Buy them a nice set of soft natural bristled brushes that actually flow the paint around in an ever so gratifying way.

Next try painting with those watercolors.  Nothing complicated, maybe just a rainbow.  If you find that you see almost as much white-ish binder in them as pigment when you wet them down, they're crap chuck them too.  Real water colors are not pastel when they dry unless you've added tons of water.  Get a nice starter set of watercolors in tubes for everybody to share, and a plastic pallet for each kid.  You'll probably want to be in charge of doling out the paints.  Put a little, little dab of color from the tubes in each little basin and add water using your brush.  Just that little dab can go a long way, and if you have to take a break from your painting, and the little basins dry up; just add water again, and you are good to go again.

Crayons are really only fun on certain papers and up until you reach a certain age, and then you just want . . . more.  Oil pastels are awesome, yes a tad messy, but awesome intense color.  They are lots of fun to use on dark colored paper where they can really pop!  Oil pastels do lack precision, but that's where colored pencils really shine.  (I use my really pricey Prismacolors, but we've found most of the mid-price range colored pencils are great.  You are looking for soft leads that will put down some really nice thick color.)  There are lots of fun things to be done with those old waxy crayons, but get those darling kids of yours something new for creating pictures.  And yes, they do NEED the big set.  

Pretty much anything that you are using to transfer pigments, (paints, crayons, sidewalk chalk, etc.)  bought at the dollar store is going to garner my scorn because they are crap don't have enough pigment in produce satisfactory results.  I don't like to get too political on this blog, but here I go.  I'm naming names.  Do NOT buy RoseArt, (crap!) Cra Z-Art, (crap!) Sargent Art, (crap!)  (I hope you are all reading this with a Mike Meyer's Scottish accent.)J

Now, you have a couple of months before school starts, and you can use all those 40% off coupons to fill up that back-to-school check list or to build up your home supply of quality supplies ~ one nice item each week.  (oooo or if you really want to make me proud, buy the supplies at a locally owned, mom & pop art supply store for full price. . . but then that is a whole new soapbox for a whole other post someday. . .)

If kids use crap lousy materials to create with, they are going to think that it is their skills (which are most definitely NOT crap) that are making the end results less than what they imagined and then they think they aren't good at art and they lose interest.  So get them the good stuff!  You wouldn't ever get them a toy musical instrument and expect them to become musicians or send them out to play tackle football in a football player Halloween costume.  (the stirring background music swells)  All those future famous artists out there are depending on you to save their world, (dramatic pause) one decent colored pencil at a time!

ahem. . . and now I'll see if I can repel down off this soapbox, and get back to my usual mild mannered blogging. J

(UPDATE: Since some of you asked about it, now there's a post about papers to use with your new art supplies.)