By Spramani Elaun
Creating art at home can feel simple, joyful, and deeply meaningful—for both children and parents. As a homeschool mom and art teacher, I spent many years guiding my own children through art projects right at home. What began at my kitchen table eventually grew into a home-based art school and later became Nature of Art For Kids®.
In this post, I’m sharing my best tips for helping kids create art at home with confidence. These insights come from years of hands-on experience teaching my own children and thousands of students, as well as from the ideas I’ve expanded on in my art education books.
Where Should You Teach Art at Home?
There’s no single “right” place to make art. In our home, art spaces moved as life changed.
The kitchen table worked beautifully when my kids were young. It was close to me, easy to clean, and felt like the heart of the house. When projects got extra messy, we moved outside to the patio or backyard. Over time, as my kids grew and wanted more privacy, art-making naturally shifted into their bedrooms or quiet corners of the house.
My best advice is this:
Choose a space where you feel comfortable and where your kids naturally want to be. For us, that place was often the kitchen—because that’s where the action was.
Can You Teach Your Own Kids Art?
Yes, absolutely—you can teach your own kids art.
Teaching art at home is much like teaching cooking, gardening, or baking. You don’t need to be a professional artist to guide your child. You also don’t need to know how to draw realistic pictures or paint perfectly.
Here’s something important many parents don’t realize:
Children between the ages of 6 and 12 do not need advanced drawing or painting instruction yet. What they need first is lots of process-based art experiences—simple, exploratory, hands-on making.
This means:
- Open-ended projects
- Exploration of materials
- Repetition of basic skills
- Freedom to experiment without pressure
You and your child can learn the basics together and gradually move toward more complex projects. If, later on, a pre-teen or teen wants focused technical instruction, that’s when classes or specialized lessons make sense.
What Art Should You Teach at Home?
After years of teaching and observing children, I identified the core areas that make up a balanced visual art education. These are the art experiences children should revisit again and again during their elementary years:
- Drawing
- Painting
- Color Theory
- Modeling & Sculpture
- Crafting & Building
These areas give children a full creative foundation. In my books, I explain how to approach each one at different ages and how to choose methods that feel natural and developmentally appropriate.
What Art Supplies Work Well at Home?
You don’t need a massive collection of supplies. A small, thoughtful selection goes a long way. Over the years, these have been some of my most-loved, most-used materials for home art:
- Block-style crayons
- Thick wooden colored pencils
- Soft pastels
- Oil pastels
- Watercolor pencils
- Watercolor crayons
- Dry watercolor palettes
- Non-hardening modeling clay
- Student-grade acrylic paint (kid-safe only)
- Liquid watercolor or finger paint
Choose child-safe, non-toxic supplies and rotate materials rather than offering everything at once.
Final Thoughts
Teaching art at home doesn’t require perfection, fancy setups, or an art degree. It requires curiosity, patience, and a willingness to explore alongside your child.
Art-making at home can be relaxed, flexible, and deeply rewarding. I’ve built my life’s work around helping families feel confident bringing visual arts into their homes—and I truly believe that meaningful art experiences can happen anywhere, even at a kitchen table.
Being artful at home is possible.
About the Author: Spramani Elaun is a professional artist, author of 10 books on early childhood and elementary art education, and founder of Nature of Art®. She holds degrees in Fine Arts, Graphic Design, Digital Media, Print Media, and Business, and has spent over two decades developing the Science Art Method™. She trains Montessori schools and independent educators worldwide.
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