The Organic Artist for Kids may not seem like a first book for a researcher to engage in when working with children on drawing, painting, and other fine arts skills.
However, it is a book which helps a researcher and a child to reach a deeper engagement in the artistic process and ultimately nature itself.
This book teaches children to use supplies found in nature to create their own art tools and thus widens their awareness, perception and expression, all fundamentals to the creative process.
Viewing the many beautiful illustrations and photos in this book is inspiring. The photos show in a step-by-step fashion how to make paints, inks, brushes and other tools that come from nature.
The book gives practical suggestions of activities which use these art tools. The activities are rated by challenge levels. One leaf indicates the simplest activity such as creating ink from foraged mulberries; while three leaves is the most challenging level, for example, creating one’s own mark-making tools.
Examples of projects and skills covered in this book include:
● Making pens and wild inks
● Making paint from stones and rocks
● Crafting one’s own paintbrushes
● Making simple stencils and rubbings
● Creating beautiful mandalas from nature
● Paper-mache-mask making
If you want to anchor at deeper levels in the creative process, self-expression and nature, while at the same time refine your fine arts skills, this book is highly recommended.
An artist of interest who uses some of these natural processes is Sophie Munns. She gives courses online where participants create drawings of seeds using black ink and mark making tools from nature. Her website is https://sophiemunns.weebly.com/
Subsequent to The Organic Artist For Kids, Nick Neddo has a book for youth and adults called The Organic Artist. Of special interest in this book is a chapter on how to make a journal and sketch in it.