Philiosophy
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to
remain an artist once he grows up.”
- Pablo Piccaso
artKids philosophy
All our workshops - for kids and adults - focus on learning in a fun, supportive and creative environment.
artKids workshops are based on an art agreement we have with our students:
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There are no mistakes or flops in art, only 'flopportunities'!
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I am unique and on my own art journey. I don't compare myself to others.
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I use kind, positive, supportive words about my own art and other's art. And I accept kind words too.
Drawing from the beliefs that everyone is creative, that creativity can be taught and that we can learn to use it with confidence, our art workshops are focused on building skills and techniques to enable the student to express their own individual creativity. We use proven, right-brain techniques to access the student's creativity and imagination, and practice drawing techniques weekly to build skills and confidence in this fundamental area.
Students are taught in a context of art appreciation, learning how to 'read' and critical interpret artworks through games and other visual stimuli.
The artKids story
As a child I always drew pictures and wrote stories. The older I got, the less I drew and my creative outlet became creative writing. Yet I struggled with my creativity. I was fascinated by the whole creative process - where did it come from, were some people just talented, how could I become more like them?
Through personal experience and extensive research, I created the Absolute Beginners Creative Writing Course in which I explored how to access the creative right-brain and how to turn down the analytical, critical left-brain. I discovered that we are all Recovering Creatives, striving to throw off ingrained beliefs taken on from our childhood, our culture and our relationships with adults and peers, whose off-the-cuff comments affected us more than we ever thought they could.
When I became a parent myself, I wanted my children to enjoy and explore their creativity in an environment where there was no judgement, where there was no 'right way' to do something, and where their efforts were acknowledged. I began to research how to foster creativity in children. At the same time, I started running parent and toddler art and craft sessions from my home. Not surprisingly, it was the parents who often ended up happily doing the craft, revelling in the no-judgement scenario of a kids' craft workshop. I began teaching art and craft to adults, venturing into art journaling and mixed media works.
As my children grew and began primary school, they wanted to learn how to draw. - and, of course, they didn't want to learn from their mum! I began looking for art classes that aligned with my philosophy - a fun and supportive environment where there were no mistakes, only opportunities to do things differently. But there weren't any in the north of Canberra. A chance meeting with a like-minded mother and art-history teacher, and several coffees later, artKids was born.
We began teaching once a week in a school and from there, I began teaching two more classes out of my home. Within three years, artKids workshops and drawing clubs are now run daily in five schools, we teach over 100 students weekly and our locations are rapidly expanding.
If you'd like to see an artKids workshop run at your school, please contact me now.