Christmas gift for an artistic four year old?
3dogmama (1925 points) | Sat, 2008-11-15 16:00My youngest is exhibiting a flair for art. Any suggestions on what to give a youngster to bud this interest?
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
3 dog.
"Art -- the one achievement of Man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised." - James Thurber
Lego toy sets when I was younger. The possibilities were endless with what you could create, and if you were missing any pieces, you'd find creative ways of replacing them.
Leaky Penny
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“If you do what you love to do, then you won’t do it in an average way.”
~ Angela Bassett
Leaky Penny
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We artists are indestructible, even in a prison cell or concentration camp I would be almighty in my own world of art. Even if I had to paint my pictures with my wet tongue on the dusty floor of my cell. - Pablo Picasso
I intend on bequeathing them to my son! :)
First I'll have to clean em. . .lol
"Try not, Do! or do not, there is no try."
-Yoda
I've spent untold hours coloring with my kids. I love to do things with crayons to show them more than just "stay inside the lines"... almost like a subliminal art lesson. I blend and shade and burnish. I put things in that aren't there, or I change what is there into something else. By doing it my way I'm hoping to give them something to shoot for without forcing them to do it. They color their way, and I color in mine, but at the same time they see the difference and I think can't help but pick up on the techniques and store it away. Usually they're too impatient to do it so it's only a hope that they'll want to later on.
Another thing I like to do is scribbles. you or your child scribble something on a blank paper (or scrap) then, like cloud watching, look for a picture in it and color it in.
We do that with diner place-mats too, and bring or ask for pens or pencils just to do that while we wait for the food.
And four is a great age for coloring, fingerpainting, and cut and paste type crafts with supervision.
"...and mamma cried: Watch out where the huskies go, don't you eat that yellow snow" - Frank Zappa
My mom bought me amazing amounts of art supplies when i was a kid.
Maybe a set of colored pencils that turn to paint? My little cousin has those, and I am slightly jealous—they're pretty cool.
Is your child a girl or a boy? When I was 4 I sewed a dress for my doll. Maybe you could give some buttons and lace and fabric stuff, or just things to glue together. Beads are also fun.
Great, now I want to go to hobby lobby.
SMEELLY JELL PENS!!
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At my house I have a couple of those art easels (I have two kids). Basically, they are an easel with a chalkboard on one side and a dry erase board on the other and they come with a roll of butcher paper that you can color on and tear off. They also have a tray for storage of supplies. My kids love them. They use those more than just about any other toy I have bought them. You may already have one, but if not, I would highly recommend it.
Something like this, but there are a ton of variations out there at different price ranges.
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3130505
I want one for myself! lol
Seriously though, I wonder what 'cool' invention they will come up with when MY kid is four years old!
:)
"Try not, Do! or do not, there is no try."
-Yoda
Ah...plus ça change...I had one of those when I was a kid. Loved it to death! My mother had her big-girl easel and smelly oil paints; I had my me-sized one and colored chalk and watercolors and --
Damn! I need me a kid. Want to buy one of those things RIGHT NOW. I'm amazed they're not, like, holographic or something now. Must start calling cousins.
M
Mara
Thank you all.
As you guessed mbennett, we have the easel and there's been many a messy day spent delving into the world of fingerpaints and brush.
I checked out the smelly jells, jhouse, but am afraid that our one food hound of a dog would get into them...she already eats marbles, which I'm constantly keeping an eye out for!
I am going to check out the pencils to waterpaints, Alissa. That sounds right up my son's alley...a new medium to explore.
LEGO rocks and thanks to grandparents those sets keep rolling in. My youngest has the patience for it while my eldest son snaps if one piece dislodges.
I like the scribble, find a picture idea, walksin2trees, as the son in question is a real crayon scribble kind of kid. I will definitely explore that with him.
"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."
— Frank Zappa
"Art -- the one achievement of Man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised." - James Thurber
I've done some work with watercolor pencils, the first time I tried them I didn't really like them...the ones I used gave me more color than I wanted when I ran the wet brush over it, and I stuck with acrylics for a long time. A few years ago, I decide I'd give them another try and bought a set from Walmart and I didn't have the same issue.
another thing to look for is paint pens. I don't recall a brand name, but it's a squeeze tube, with flexible rubber/plastic bristles under the cap. they come in all the common colors and some have glitter mixed in. I believe it was a finger paint inside.
"...and mamma cried: Watch out where the huskies go, don't you eat that yellow snow" - Frank Zappa
maybe not quite yet (probably 6 or so), and i don't know if they're still out there, but (and i'm showing my age), but i got a used erector set when i was a kid. it even came with a motor. i thought that was pretty cool then.
street chalk for drawing on the driveway/sidewalk?
My mother had my brother and I doing embroidery and latch-hook rug as kids... mostly because that's what she was doing. we both enjoyed it too, and it gave us sewing skills. Perhaps at four years old, to lead up to more dexterous projects, you can start him with plastic canvas and yarn. my niece started learning that last week, so it's fresh in my mind.
I use photoshop at pixel level to plan images for her to do: I limit the colors of the image to the yarns available, the pixel size of the image to match the canvas grid and each pixel represents where the colors go. This way you're not limited to store-bought patterns.
"...and mamma cried: Watch out where the huskies go, don't you eat that yellow snow" - Frank Zappa
I saw a great book about a paper-folding artist, his were kind of delicate for a four year old, but you can try simpler designs.
"...and mamma cried: Watch out where the huskies go, don't you eat that yellow snow" - Frank Zappa
And didn't that just bring back happy childhood memories.
Both sons would probably like to try Origami. I know it kept me enthralled for hours on end.
"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."
— Frank Zappa
"Art -- the one achievement of Man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised." - James Thurber
oh, along those lines, i had a great paper airplane book as a kid with all kinds of paper airplane designs you could make out of a simple 8.5x11 sheet of paper. and then, of course, we'd draw all over them to make them look "cool."
this wasn't oragami, though that's good too and maybe beter for a four year old, these were cut into shapes and folded to give shape and texture with designs cut into them with an exacto (this part would not be for a four year old obviously)some were very intricate and delicate, and were more on a level with model building.
"...and mamma cried: Watch out where the huskies go, don't you eat that yellow snow" - Frank Zappa
Gotchya. We did that sort of 3D work when I was in college. Very fiddly but rewarding.
"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."
— Frank Zappa
"Art -- the one achievement of Man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised." - James Thurber
apparently, it's a table with high sides (so the rice stays contained (theoretically)) to be filled with colored rice. it's used like colored sand, but is easier to clean-up. apparently her little cousin uses one at preschool. only trouble I see is clean up, or if a drink spills into it.
I guess it wouldn't be as hard on the vaccuum as beads would be though.
"...and mamma cried: Watch out where the huskies go, don't you eat that yellow snow" - Frank Zappa
Hey there. I also have a 4 year old son (plus a 2 year old daughter), how cool.
I'm trying to think of what all we're getting for him. I know we recently decided to wrap up our old 2mp camera as an additional gift (we're getting a new fancy one plus we have another newer one as a backup and he always wants to try to use it). I had an old manual camera when I was younger that I loved. We intend to sit down with him as he imports them into iPhoto and do a mini-critique and just teach him about photography in general.
Another idea is dress up stuff. He always steals his sisters skirts, tiaras, etc. We also gave him a huge cardboard box one year that our freezer came in... he loved it! They don't really need a lot to use their imagination; I would actually argue that the smaller, the better.
Good luck! And let us know what you do!