Teaching Art When You Aren't an Artist

In high school, I read an article in that stuck with me. The topic discussed confidence young kids possess v. teens and adults.  If you ask a young child “can you sing?” or “can you draw?”, you’ll get a “Yes!” But as we grow older, we flesh out the meaning, or our perception, of the question. “Can I sing well enough to be on stage at a concert?” “Can I draw well enough to have a show?”
And we stop doing those things that we don’t excel at even if we enjoy them.
Somewhere along the line, early in elementary school, I learned I wasn’t an artist. I tried. I really did. But my pieces didn’t look like those of the teacher or the ‘good’ art students.
So I stopped creating art.

In college, I had to take an ‘art for non-majors’ class. And I was reminded that I wasn’t an artist. By the people on my dorm room floor, by others in my class and, as much as she tried to encourage me, by my instructor as well.
Fast forward to last summer. As I prepared for a Disney Day in our homeschool, in advance of our vacation, I remembered art videos I came across. Disney animators taught you how to draw various characters.
My illustrations would be awful, I assumed, but at least it would be just in front of my kids. And then we did them. And my Sorcerer Mickey looked like Sorcerer Mickey!
It was the first time since before I learned I wasn’t an artist that I felt like an artist.

Is it any wonder, then, why I was drawn to You Are An Artist chalk pastel lessons?? And the timing was perfect. Our Olympic-themed morning basket needed some type of art activity. The Winter Games art lessons required no set-up, minimal clean-up and the lessons were short, all things I dislike in projects. {Truth be told, those things keep me from doing many art projects at all.} A perfect fit!

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Each lesson takes us around 20 minutes to complete, including set-up & clean-up. Each video lesson is 7-10 minutes. There is an example of the finished project at the beginning of the lesson, a short introduction to the lesson and then she gets started.

The videos are shot overhead with a clear view. Sometimes her hand partially hides the paper at the end of a step but we haven’t found it to be too bothersome. She gives very clear instructions without being wordy. Her encouragement to not be concerned about mistakes is sincere and well-paced. {We have used art videos where the instructor says it so often that it feels fake or like she expects your work to be a hot mess. I mean, sometimes it is….but I don’t want that to be the expectation!!}

What Else You Need to Know

• Getting Started with Chalk Pastels ebook is free and includes a coupon for your first purchase!
• These are the chalk pastels we are using.  Under $8 makes this art medium a pretty inexpensive one!  If you’d like to purchase higher-quality pastels, we really like Prismacolor art supplies.  Those are the ones You Are An Artist recommends and the ones we will purchase next.
• Lessons are available in ebook or video format. We really enjoyed the lessons but I would absolutely give the ebooks a try if your budget doesn’t have room for the videos.
• Video courses begin at $16 and ebooks begin at $5. The prices vary depending on how many lessons are in each course.
• Chalk pastels can get messy!  I keep a wet cloth by each of us as well as a dry one.  Anytime we use dark colors, we wipe up before we move on.  As you can see in the medals picture, my 7yo has an especially difficult time with it getting on the sides of his hands!
• Each lesson takes us 15-30 minutes depending on the difficulty.
• Use a cheap aerosol hairspray, like AquaNet, to ightly spray your completed work to ‘seal’ it.