Art Can Foster Creativity, Standard of Excellence in Children

Art is every child’s first, and native, language. Early scribbles, done with pencil, ink or lipstick, are a lot like the babbles of baby talk. They are the first expressions of thoughts and feelings, and an early look, perhaps, at a little one’s personality.

And sometimes when words escape youngsters, visual expression does not.

“Art is their best language for a long time,” says Edie Pistolesi, who has taught art to children and is finishing a doctoral program in art education at Pennsylvania State University. “Kids are just very articulate visually. Kids who don’t have a verbal vocabulary have their visual vocabulary. They will put down into a picture wonderful insights into how they see the world.”

Last summer Pistolesi studied thousands of artworks by children 12 and under as a judge in the Crayola National Coloring Event. They gave her insight into what American children are thinking about and how they express those thoughts through art. This summer Pistolesi is encouraging children to share their worlds through art while trying to win a college scholarship or other awards offered by Crayola.

If Pistolesi’s enthusiasm is catching, she will encourage even more entries than last year’s 30,000, for she is truly excited about what kids do naturally with pens, pencils, crayons, markers, paints, clay and any other media that appeal to them.

“Every child has a gift. Visual expression is universal to all children. Every child on this planet will take something and make a mark . . . without being told,” Pistolesi says.

This happens in homes of the rich and the poor. It does not matter what materials a child has. “We’re talking a stick in dirt . . . a finger on a frosted window. You can’t suppress it.”

Grown-ups should, in fact, be doing just the opposite.

“It’s our job to find the gift and nurture something that’s already there,” says Pistolesi, a resident of Boca Raton, Fla., who works as a consultant for Crayola and judges its annual event.

“You would be surprised to see how far a compliment will go,” she says. A good word about one horse drawing will produce a dozen more horses in varying shades, sizes and settings, but that is OK. As the child draws dozens and dozens of horses, his work will gradually become more sophisticated and beautiful.

Along the way, a parent or teacher can motivate the child by talking with him about his pictures and listening to what he has to say.

“Kids are dying for someone to ask them about their work. Ask them to tell a story about the picture. Ask them as many questions as you can,” Pistolesi says.

“A kid will stop drawing when he gets frustrated,” she says. “That’s when he needs an adult to step in with a good word or some other sort of inspiration.”

Adults can also inspire children by providing an atmosphere in which their ideas are accepted, by showing them art they can copy or emulate, and by taking them to the real thing--horses, if that is their passion--so they can draw from reality.

All this nurturing is not intended to bring about a generation of professional artists. It is meant to capitalize on an enjoyable pastime that comes naturally to youngsters and to teach skills in art that can be transferred to other areas of life, Pistolesi says. A sense of excellence, for instance, can be fostered in art, as can creativity.

“The one thing that we want to give kids is a sense of self-esteem,” she says. Art does this, too, particularly when an adult hangs a child’s creation in a special place. “Put them where you would put a Picasso if you had one,” she advises.

As for parents facing the problem of prolific artists unwilling to part with a scribble, Pistolesi has a simple solution: “Build an addition.”

More practically, she advises starting a folder of “special pictures that stand out.” Mark the back of each picture with the child’s age at the time of the picture and anything he said about it.

These youthful creations show what kids are thinking about. Pistolesi saw this clearly when she, and other judges, agonized over the many entries in last year’s event, built on the theme “Wishes Are Windows to a Child’s Imagination.”

“Anybody who thinks kids are simple is mistaken.” Children don’t often talk about issues, but they do express them in art, Pistolesi said. In the 1988 contest, many children reminisced about a happier time and wished for it: that a friend would come back, that a father would not be in jail or that a family would be together again. The pictures, Pistolesi says, showed clearly “how sad they were when a friend moved away. Any parent who didn’t already know it, knew it when he saw the picture.”