Are you looking for ways to nurture your child's artistic talent? Read on to learn what to look for when seeking art classes and how to ensure your child is learning valuable skills that will help them grow as an artist.

If you have an artistic child, you may wonder how to best support their talents. Art classes can be a great way to develop their skills and foster their creativity. However, it can be challenging to know what to look for when seeking professional instruction. In this blog, we'll share some tips on what to consider when choosing art classes for your child, so they can learn valuable skills and continue to grow as an artist.

When seeking art classes for your child, you are going to want to ask these questions: 

• What exactly is the teacher going to teach? Are they teaching step by step art projects or is it more like process art and are they allowing for the child’s creativity to come through?
• Is the teacher going to be using different mediums or only focus on one?
• Does the teacher create her own artwork and if so is her artwork good?

Now let’s go through why these questions are important:

In art, there are fundamental skills that every student should learn. Skills like how to draw accurately, and how to paint correctly. What this means is that students should be learning skills like how to draw an object by drawing a few shapes together and then drawing the outline, the process of drawing still life, from an image, the process of mixing and blending colors, using a palette, the process of canvas painting and how to use different mediums. 

The reason why these skills are important is because once a student has these fundamental skills, they can then continue their art journey knowing they have no gaps in their knowledge and with confidence that they have the methods and process to paint and draw anything. 

So when seeking art lessons, look for art lessons that will teach the process, or the methods needed to draw or paint. 

Here are some things you can look out to help you know if your child is learning art properly. 

• Is your child coming home with a project that everyone else has done exactly the same way? 
• Is your child able to draw and paint pictures using skills he has learned in class, at home?
• Are they using different mediums to create their art projects?

You want your child to discover the properties of different mediums so they aren’t stuck just knowing one medium. You also want your child to be learning skills so they can apply them at home and if he is just doing step by step projects each week, chances are he isn’t getting the skills but just following along with the teacher. 

If your child is drawing on their skills they’ve learned in art class, to draw and paint things at home and you can see they have used their knowledge based on what they’ve been taught in art class, you know you are on the right track. 

So I hope this gives you a little bit of an idea of what to look for when choosing art classes for your child and helps your child develop their artistic skills and find joy in the creative process. Remember to prioritize fundamental skills, encourage creativity, and choose classes that offer a variety of mediums and experienced instructors. With the right instruction, your child can grow into a confident and skilled artist.