There will always be debate as to whether artists are born or created, as will there be such debates about leaders, musicians and poets. Whatever your view is, some skills do need to be taught and talents need to be encouraged and nurtured.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit
Aristotle

To encourage the artist in your child and help them exercise the artistic side of their brain, you do not need to sit at a table and draw or paint, you do not even need to be at home or within reach of a crayon! Art is about seeing the forms and colours of the world around you in a way that a lot of people do not. Young children naturally see the world in raw forms and colours as so much of it is new to them so they do not tend to ’scan over’ things like we adults do.

You can encourage a child’s natural interest in everything around them by discussing the shapes, colours and textures of objects. For example, you may be in the supermarket and pick up a bag of pasta. You could talk to your child about the shape of the bag, how the top and bottom edges are jagged and the rest smooth. How the bag is clear so you can see the contents inside but there are wrinkles in the bag in the places where it is not so full. Smaller children may enjoy tracing the outline of an object with their finger in the air.

For older kids you can look at colour in detail. Looking at the various colours that an object is composed of is excellent practice for painting and is something that a child will definitely improve at with practice.

All of these tasks and activities not only exercise the artistic side of your child’s brain, but they will also help develop and hone their skills in spatial reasoning, general observation and the basic physics of the world around them.

The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.
Emile Zola