The best age to learn painting

With the development of the economy, people have begun to pursue spiritual development beyond material things. More and more parents are willing to send their children to learn a special skill, which is beneficial to the development of their children's qualities. Drawing is a specialty chosen by many parents for their children. It not only exercises children's hands-on ability, but also is beneficial to the development of their brain thinking. So, when is the best age for children to learn to paint?

According to expert analysis, children's art education is staged, and the requirements for art education for children at different stages are also different. Our requirements for children's art education cannot be too high. If they are too high, it will cause too much psychological burden on children, and the effect will be counterproductive. Once children fail to reach the level that satisfies adults, they will most likely lose interest in painting. If adults' requirements for children are too low, and children do not try their best to learn, the original intention of our education may not be achieved.

1. What is the best age for children to learn to paint?

Children aged 2 to 3 years old

Children of this age have rapidly developed visual perception, but their hand-foot coordination is not yet fully developed, so they often cannot hold the tools in their hands steadily. Parents can simply teach their children how to hold a pen, and then prepare some thick drawing paper and crayons of various colors. You can even use finger paints instead of brushes, and let the children dip their hands in non-toxic and easy-to-clean finger paints, and then doodle on the drawing paper. It is particularly important to note that pencils and pens can easily hurt children because their tips are too sharp and hard, so parents should try not to use them. Children as old as two years old can already express their emotions and thoughts through graffiti in a purposeful way. Parents should seize this best period for drawing.

2. What are the benefits of children learning to paint?

When children scribble various marks on paper, it is an exciting moment for babies and makes them very excited. Moreover, in the process of graffiti, the traces drawn are not just simple traces. Children can also experience the connection between hand movements and these traces through these messy traces, thereby exercising the coordination ability of the brain and small hands, which can make children's hands more flexible. Moreover, learning to paint is also very conducive to the development of children's emotional thinking. The process of painting is a process in which the imagination is highly active, which can broaden the child's spiritual thinking space and improve the child's observation and imagination.

3. How to teach children to draw

1. Unconditional encouragement and support are important

Generally, at the beginning, children are encouraged to doodle boldly and freely on the drawing paper. It doesn’t matter what they draw, or whether the drawing is good or not. What is important is the child’s spontaneous painting experience. What parents need to do mainly is to listen to their children’s own description and understanding of the picture, ask them more questions about why they draw it that way, and give them 100% encouragement.

2. Cherish your child’s unique imagination

When children start to learn to paint, their messy works will make parents worried. Some parents may even be eager to teach their children to draw concrete objects such as the sun, white clouds, flowers, etc. This mentality is not a good one. As soon as children start picking up a paintbrush, they are at the height of originality.

With their pure eyes, they break free from the constraints of visual inertia and reach the true core of things to create unique original works. This is the most precious thing for a child. Adults should cherish children’s original freedom, break the myth that “a painting is good only if it resembles the real thing”, and give children the creative freedom to doodle freely. This is why the world's great painters such as Picasso, Miró and others turned to primitive art or children's paintings for inspiration in order to pursue higher levels of artistic breakthroughs and establish their own unique style, thus achieving their artistic careers.

3. Parents should not force their children to grow too fast

Some parents have asked: "Teacher, why don't our children learn sketching, plaster sculptures, oil painting and gouache painting, which are compulsory subjects for the college entrance examination and the senior high school entrance examination? It would be better to start early and learn early!" Parents' urgent desire for their children's education is understandable, but this idea goes against the development laws of children themselves and ignores the age and physiological characteristics of children. The small hand muscles of early childhood children are not able to flexibly control the brush for fine sketching, nor can they accurately draw the proportions of the plaster size. Asking young children to undergo these difficult and uninteresting test-taking exercises will only give them a negative painting experience and dampen their interest in painting. For children of this age to learn these courses is tantamount to forcing their growth.