Raising and Nurturing Young Artists

Me and 4-year old Kaira (2008)

I have always been amazed by our 7-year old daughter Kaira's keen interest to visual arts. She started scribbling as early as 1 year old and draw her first family portrait at the age of 3. By the age of 5 she can already apply basic coloring principles, tone and shadows and her composition does make sense and mostly family scenes, her dreams and wishes and just about anything to express herself. What more could she do 5 to 10 years from now? 

Some would say talent is an inborn trait, while others argue that it is acquired and developed as the person grows. Being a father to her, it does not really matter and I can say that it is pretty much a mixture of both innate talent which can be developed in time. 

Having such a talented kid is both a blessing and entails responsibility: to let her know how much I appreciate her talent and to do everything I can to develop such talent and bring out the best in her to achieve her full potential.

Drawing is her daily pastime.

We can only do so much as a proud and supportive parents. As she enters her formative years, I remember playing with her and devoting that precious time as much as I can. It was also important that we were able to provide lots of avenue for expressing her talent by giving her piles of scratch papers to draw on, coloring materials, coloring books and exposing her to other activities in order to enhance her talent.

Commendation and posting her works on the wall and online made her feel acknowledged and valued as a young artist. But instilling creativity in her doesn't necessarily mean glorifying every work that she knocks out on the wall. It was important that we compliment her by the great work she made but more than that, it always come along with a question of what the work is all about, why she created it and how she feels about her work. There is always a challenge about how she could have done it differently in order to look better. This is to ensure that the value of critical and creative thinking does not stop the moment she gets the  positive feedback she is looking for. 

Kaira presenting her work before a family audience.

Despite all these, I feel that I am only doing very little for what she needs. I probably need more time and effort in order to keep up, and I have been looking forward to have that moment where she could be enrolled in an art/painting class soon.

Isah Myka, her 5-year old sister is also now showing clear signs of inclination towards visual arts. What's surprising is that each of their works have their own style and character. For instance, Myka is fond of pure and clean lines, light colors with mostly fashion and fairytale subjects while that of Kaira's are mostly done in relatively rough lines, heavy colors and family oriented themes. 

It amazes and gets me excited every time I come home from the office and they come up to me bragging about their masterpiece for the day. 

Isah Myka proudly presenting her work