Basics:
Art making is a fun and interactive way for children to express themselves and to become familiar with the creative processes used by artists. While some adults may initially find art making challenging, it is also an enriching experience.
Benefits of Art-Making Programs
How to Use this Tool
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Benefits of Art-Making Programs:
- Building Confidence
- When educators emphasize process over product, students are most likely to increase their sense of autonomy and independence, and ultimately grow in self-awareness. Art making can be used as a catalyst for teaching the core curricula (braille skills, reading, writing, social studies, science, and math).
- Enhancing the Curriculum
- When students make art, they experience a variety of materials used by artists and architects, as well as the decision-making processes that they have gone through over the centuries. Collecting and working with natural materials to make a collage, for example, can expand students' learning in an environmental-studies program. Modeling and construction projects can be used in science classes.
- Developing Thinking Skills
- When students make art, they have the opportunity to express their feelings, fantasize, tell stories, and give their ideas concrete form. They can reflect on their everyday experiences and observations, and draw upon them. Students find relationships between objects, consider alternatives, and make choices. They may also relate their own experience with different mediums and design to the processes and works of well-known artists.
- Improving Tactile and Motor Skills
- Art making is a fascinating and effective way to introduce students to a wide variety of textures and help them develop their tactile exploration skills. Younger students will develop their motor skills when working on construction or modeling projects that involve manipulating paper, cardboard, clay, plaster, and other materials.
How to Use This Tool
In Museums
Although the number of objects that visitors are allowed to touch is sometimes limited for security and conservation reasons, museums can offer art-making programs to complement conventional programs, such as audio tours.
With Individuals
As with all audiences, art making can become a satisfying occasional means of self-expression, a hobby, or the avenue into a career in the arts. See, for example, the essay by artist Rebecca Harris in chapter 1 of Art Beyond Sight: A Resource Guide to Art, Creativity, and Visual Impairment.
Try It Yourself
Go hunting and gathering. While some materials can be found at your local art store, try looking around. Be resourceful about recycling found materials into your classroom or art studio, and ask students to do the same. Familiarize yourself with the materials and techniques before you take them into the classroom.
...developmentally appropriate uses of materials, see the essay by Linda L. Gerra and Jennifer Drower, "Art Therapy for People with Multiple Disabilities," in chapter 10 of Art Beyond Sight: A Resource Guide to Art, Creativity, and Visual Impairment . Although the essay refers to work with multiply disabled people, the information and considerations are applicable to most audiences.
...how to use art-making activities with adults, see the description of the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens program in chapter 11, "Museum Programs," and Karen Spitzberg's essay, "Art Education for Lifelong Learning," in chapter 10 in Art Beyond Sight: A Resource Guide to Art, Creativity, and Visual Impairment .
