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Getting Kids Interested in Art Through Hands-on Learning

Andie Tydings

Youth Services Librarian

St. Mary’s County Library

Leonardtown, MD

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Learning Objectives

Learning Objective #1 - Participants will be able to create an art program that is adaptable for a wide range of ages, developmental stages, and abilities.

Learning Objective #2 - Participants will be able to discuss art analysis in a way that is understandable for younger audiences.

Learning Objective #3 - Participants will be able to build an art-themed craft for younger audiences.

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My “Art Night for Kids” series was a four-part art program for kids aged 6-12 that I did summer 2024, which involved:

- Introducing four famous works of art, one per session, to the participants

- Giving them analytical, open-ended questions to prompt them to think deeper and more critically about these artworks and

- Providing a hands-on craft related to the famous artworks

The purpose of this art series was to bring attention to important historical works of art that kids may or may not have seen before. Each session was an hour long, starting with a brief presentation where I introduced the kids to the artwork we’d be recreating. Once they had been introduced to the piece, I asked a series of analytical questions, and then asked them to try to recreate the piece themselves (or, in most cases, use the tools provided and make their own, unique artwork in the same ‘style’ as the original)

The artwork crafts made in this program all used low-cost materials and things that you would be able to find at home. This was intentional, as I believe that cost should never prohibit someone from creating art. The artwork that was made during the program is easily replicable at home, and if the participants don’t have the supplies at home, they should be able to find what they need at the dollar store or at craft stores for an affordable price.

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“We Tried Art!” virtual teen program, 2021

Supply kits at the branches provided the materials, and the program was over zoom with an instructor

My initial inspiration for this program was a Covid-era, take-and-make program one of my colleagues had done for teens. Her program was “We Tried Art!” a virtual teen program created in 2021, which included supply kits with materials and zoom meeting with instructions.

I wanted to adapt that to a younger audience, and I wanted to make the crafts more child-friendly. I felt like this art program, while fantastic for tweens/teens, may have been too creatively restrictive for kids – I wanted to give kids the tools to make art their own however they see fit, and while clay, paint, and pipe cleaners leave room for creativity, this program itself was too limiting and would have to have been revamped to be applicable for my age range.

At first, I had wanted to do art pieces that emphasized different types of art – landscapes, portraits, etc. but finding artworks that fit those categories that also offered variety in the craft counterpart was difficult.

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Based on Frida Kahlo’s The Frame, 1938

Foth, Crystal. “Frida Kahlo Inspired Self-Portrait for Kids.” Woo! Jr. Kids Activities, n.d., https://woojr.com/frida-kahlo-inspired-self-portrait-kids/. 21 Feb 2025.

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Hokusai, Katsushika. Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei). 1830-1832, Woodblock print, ink and color on paper, The Met Museum, New York.

Utrecht. “Inovart Printfoam for Block Printing.” Utrecht Brand Art Supplies, n.d., https://www.utrechtart.com/products/inovart-printfoam-for-block-printing/. 21 Feb 2025.

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The pieces I used in this series are:

“Under the Wave off Kanagawa” by Katsushika Hokusai

“A Sunday on La Grande Jatte” by Georges Seurat

“Composition 8” by Wassily Kandinsky

“Tar Beach” by Faith Ringgold

I didn’t get introduced to art like this, or art analysis in general, until I was in college, and it opened a love of art that I still carry with me. With that in mind, I wanted to introduce art analysis to kids at a young age to try to instill a love of art and art history to kids who may not get to experience art in museums, or for kids who don’t get to experience much art at all. This program was a way to introduce art, art history, and art analysis to young kids so that they can learn to think critically about the art that they’re viewing, as well as a touch of historical context surrounding the art that they’re looking at.

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Hokusai, Katsushika.

Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei).

1830-1832, woodblock print, ink and color on paper, The Met Museum, New York, NY.

“Under the Wave off Kanagawa” was created by Katsushika Hokusai, a Japanese artist, in 1831, using a woodblock carving method. This piece is just one from Hokusai’s series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji.

I gave the participants a foam plate and a pen, and asked them to carve the design they wanted into the backside of the plate, then paint it and flip it onto the paper to reveal their design. Unfortunately, I do not have any photos of the participants’ creations for this program – honestly, I forgot to take pictures, and I corrected that for the rest of the series. This craft was a bit difficult with the kids who came to the program – the kids had a hard time understanding how deep to carve their design into the plate, and they didn’t quite understand that the design they carved was ‘backwards’ compared to what they wanted it to look like, so I’d guess that this program was the least enjoyed of the summer series. However, I think this could be a really cool craft to do for older participants, especially those who may be interested in woodblock carving or printmaking.

This program had 17 attendees

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Seurat, Georges.

A Sunday on La Grande Jatte - 1884.

1884-1889, oil on canvas, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL.

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Kandinsky, Vasily [Wassily]. Composition 8 (Komposition 8). 1923, oil on canvas, Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY.

“Composition 8” was created by Wassily Kandinsky, a Russian artist, in 1923, using oil paint on canvas. I searched for a painting like this one with a craft already in mind – I wanted the kids to make some kind of mixed-media/collage style artwork out of paper. I didn’t want my entire series to be the same kind of painting program, so I wanted to include something unique. I had never heard of this artist before, but I searched for an abstract artwork that focused on color and shape more than anything, and stumbled upon Kandinsky’s works.

One thing I wanted to mention – it appears as though the spelling of Kandinsky’s first name is interchangeable between a V and a W, so I’ve included both in this presentation.

This piece was interesting, but because it was an oil painting, I needed to come up with a way to make it kid-friendly and accessible, so I turned the craft into a paper collage-style artwork. I used our hand-crank die-cut machine and cut out a variety of shapes, as well as scissors, glue, and more paper for them to make their own designs.

https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/1924

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Ringgold, Faith.

Woman on a Bridge #1 of 5: Tar Beach.

1988, acrylic paint, canvas, printed fabric, ink, and thread, Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY.

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The series overall required a decent amount of prep time, but that was primarily a choice that I made. The two programs that took the most prep time – including the one shown here – were Composition 8, and Tar Beach. I had taken the time to die-cut shapes for Composition 8, and I cut squares out of withdrawn books for Tar Beach. Looking back, this wasn’t strictly necessary – I had done this prep work because I wanted to limit the mess that was made from the kid’s cutting paper, but they still made a mess anyway.

Day-of set-up time included preparing the PowerPoint and setting up the meeting room with tables and craft materials.

As far as the registration was concerned, I didn’t know how many people would have come had it been an open program, and I didn’t want to run out of materials, so I made it a 15-person registration only program. Over the course of 4 programs, I had 77 total attendees. I had targeted the 6-12 age range for this program (lower elementary, upper elementary, tweens) but the primary age that I had in attendance was 6-8 year olds, with an occasional younger sibling in attendance.

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A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (1884)

What do you see?
Have you ever been on a picnic?
How does this painting make you feel?
If you could name this yourself, what would you call this?
What do you think all of the people are looking at?

So, now that I’ve talked about how I created my program, I’m going to run a version of my program for you!

This is Georges Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, and these are the analytical questions I asked my kids. I wanted them to be able to put themselves in the artists’ shoes and in the painting and learn how to think critically about art, which isn’t always easy. Critical art analysis as adults includes thinking about the context of the painting, the time period that the painting was made in, what was going on in the world at that time, what was happening - in this case - in Paris in the 1880s, information about Georges Seurat, etc.

For kids, all of that is too much information. So, what I did instead was try to get them to think about the creation of the painting – what kinds of things are included in this piece (do you see the monkey on a leash? Do you see the little girl staring directly at the viewer?), what feelings do you have looking at this (do you feel calm, or agitated, or excited?), what would you name this piece, what do you think all of the people are staring at, or if this were a movie, what do you think happens next? These questions ask the kids to think a little deeper, a little more critically, at the works that they’re viewing.

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GEORGES SEURAT (1859-1891)

“Seurat created A Sunday on La Grande Jatte using pointillism, which is a type of painting that uses individual dots of color that are painted close together. When you look at it from far away, the colors blend together! - We’ll be making our paintings today the same way, with color paint and q-tips.”

^ This was the information that I included as “historical and artistic context” for my program. I was light on the historical context because of the age range of my participants, as the kids don’t enjoy sitting and listening to me talk at them as much as they enjoy making art, but if you’re building this program for an older audience, including some of the historical context for this piece would be a great way to build a greater appreciation for art history.

The amount of historical and artistic context you can include varies, depending on how involved and in-depth you want it to be. Include any information about the creation of the artwork, as well as any historical context that would add insight and a greater frame of reference for the art piece itself. FOR EXAMPLE…

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Seurat wrote, “I want to make modern people, in their essential traits, move about as they do on those friezes, and place them on canvases organized by harmonies of color.”

Art Institute of Chicago. “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884.” Art Institute of Chicago, n.d., https://www.artic.edu/artworks/27992/a-sunday-on-la-grande-jatte-1884. 21 Feb 2025

According to the Art Institute of Chicago, where this painting is on view, this piece was Seurat’s largest and best-known work. He has depicted “people from different social classes strolling and relaxing in a park” in Paris’s La Grande Jatte, “an island in the Seine River.” Seurat had used real life as his inspiration, but he wanted to “evoke the sense of timelessness associated with ancient art,” writing “I want to make modern people, in their essential traits, move about as they do on those friezes, and place them on canvases organized by harmonies of color.”

Seurat used pointillism (though he preferred the term ‘divisionism’) for this piece, which is “a highly systemic and scientific technique based on the hypothesis that closely positioned points of pure color mix together in the viewer’s eye.” He started this piece in 1884 and worked on it until 1889, when he finished the piece by adding a border of blue, orange, and red dots.

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Thomas, Alma.

Red Azaleas Singing and Dancing to Rock and Roll Music.

1976, acrylic on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, D.C.

Thomas, Alma.

Pansies in Washington. 1969, acrylic on canvas, National Gallery of Art, D.C.

Thomas, Alma.

Spring Grass.

1973, acrylic on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, D.C.

I am doing this program again during spring break, and I will be introducing the kids to artist Alma Thomas and her nature-inspired abstract artwork.

With this program, I searched specifically for art that had a spring theme, to keep in line with spring break. I found Thomas’s Pansies in Washington, and decided that her work, while gorgeous, was simple enough to include multiple pieces. The craft I will do for this program is a take on abstract art, where the kids will get a cardboard tube and foam stickers; they will be asked to cover the tube in the foam stickers, then paint and roll the tube over their paper to make abstract paintings.

I also have a colleague that did a take-and-make program about Alma Thomas, but she used squares of paper and glue to make a collage based on Pansies in Washington.

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Glass Case with Pies (Assorted Pies in a Case) by Claes Oldenburg - https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.72258.html

Two Guns Arikara by T.C. Cannon - https://www.moma.org/collection/works/420263?artist_id=133146&page=1&sov_referrer=artist

Pirate (Untitled II) by Willem de Kooning- https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78810

Guitarist by Cecil de Blaquiere Howard - https://collections.lacma.org/node/2278173

Balloon Dog by Jeff Koons- https://www.singulart.com/en/blog/2024/03/14/balloon-dog-by-jeff-koons/

Meeting of the Bodhisattvas Manjusri (Wenshu) and Samantabhadra (Puxian), artist unknown (700-800 China) - https://collections.lacma.org/node/186936

Canyon with Crows by Georgia O’Keeffe - https://collections.okeeffemuseum.org/object/1091/

Elephant, artist unknown (15^th-17^th century Thailand) - https://collections.lacma.org/node/174416

I am doing this program again for the summer, and I’ve selected a few of these pieces to use in my summer series (“Pirate (Untitled II),” and “Canyon with Crows”). When I searched for paintings to use in this presentation, I searched for things that would make fun crafts, and I searched through a variety of museum websites until I found things that stood out to me. Most notable are the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), the National Gallery of Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) websites, though there are hundreds of museums across the globe that have an online catalogue of their artworks.

With the sculptures, the craft would be making something with air dry clay (like, trying to make realistic food based off Glass Case with Pies, or making an animal, like Balloon Dog or Elephant, or a person, like Guitarist); with the relief sculpture (Meeting of the Bodhisattvas), the kids would get a block of clay and carve something into it

With Two Guns Arikara, the kids would be given a wide variety of colors and asked to make a portrait with a fun color scheme

With Pirate (Untitled II), the kids would be asked to finger paint!

With Canyon with Crows, the kids would be given watercolor paints and asked to make a landscape

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Questions/Comments?

Andie Tydings

Youth Services Librarian

Leonardtown, MD

atydings@stmalib.org

301-475-2846

Link to Resources: https://tinyurl.com/kac2025