Jean Vant Hul - The Artful Parent: Simple Ways to Fill Your Familys Life with Art and Creativity--Includes over 60 Art Projects for Children Ages 1 to 8

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Safety Note: The activities in this book are intended to be performed under adult supervision. Appropriate and reasonable caution is recommended when activities call for the use of materials such as sharp scissors, hot glue, or small items that could be choking hazards. Although this is a workbook, the recommendations in the activities in this book cannot replace common sense and sound judgment. Observe caution and safety at all times. The author and publisher disclaim liability for any damage, mishap, or injury that may occur from engaging in the activities in this book.

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Cover photographs by Lenka Hattaway and Jean Vant Hul

Cover design by Daniel Urban-Brown

Text, photography, and illustrations 2013 by Jean Vant Hul unless otherwise specified

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Vant Hul, Jean.

The artful parent: simple ways to fill your familys life with art and creativity / Jean Vant Hul.1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes index.

eISBN 978-0-8348-4036-2

ISBN 978-1-59030-964-3 (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. Handicraft for children.

2. Parent and child.

3. Creative activities and seat work.

4. Child artists. I. Title.

TT157.v285 2013

745.5083dc23

2012021168

Dedicated to parents everywhere. May you embrace art as a tool for joyful parenting as you help your children reach their true creative potential.

This book contains page references throughout. These have been retained from the original print edition for the readers reference.

When my daughters were very young, I was an artful parent like Jean Vant Hul, but I had never heard the term and didnt know that artful could be a way of life. My breakfast nook shelves were stocked with shoeboxes overflowing with shells and buttons, cans bursting with markers and brushes, stacks of paper heaped on top of cardboard scraps, and egg cartons nested in a tower. It was natural for one or both of my kids to wake up in the morning and head bleary-eyed and tousle-headed to the little art tablestill in jammiesto plop down and draw things like oddly exotic birds with colorful plumes curling from their heads or circles upon colorful circles filled with cotton balls (all this while I browned and flipped funny-face pancakes in a buttered frying pan). The days began and ended with creativity, and it was a joyful time that formed us all in ways we value now but did not plan. I never realized I was artful. I simply said yes to art and creativity, and it seemed natural for us as a family to have art in our lives every day. As I look back, I can say I was most definitely an artful parent.

Before I was the mama of two little girls, I discovered how important art could be when I was a second-grade teacher. I chose to offer real art classes, where my students openly expressed themselves with selected materials each day, rather than crafty, cutesy projects that I made for them to copy. I had some tough cases in those days, kids who couldnt sit still or listen or follow directions or use even the most rudimentary vocabulary to ask for simple things in ways we all take for granted. But when we had art? The entire classroom settled into a productive hum, and everyoneand I mean everyonewas happy and on task. Because art met the needs of so many so easily, I arranged much of my classroom activities around something, anything, that would include art. In this way, I was able to bring otherwise poor students into a world of exciting and successful learning and achieve measurable progress in their skills. Not only did I hook those kids, I was hooked myself. Art was my answer. I was an artful teacher!

Many, many years later, when I first came across The Artful Parent blog (which has evolved into this delightfully inspiring book), I knew I had come home to art that I loved and appreciated! I found a place where I could watch young children explore and discover through their own efforts, where their experiments and explorations were valued, and where the light of creativity was shining night and day, indoors and out. I saw that Jean Vant Hul was an artful parent who could say yes to art, even at times when she might have wanted to say no. Over the years, I have watched her little ones blossom through her loving, art-rich, creative home life, and along the way, Ive blossomed a bit myself. Jean has offered me new ideas and a reminder that being artful is a choice.

If you have decided to be an artful parent, even if its just a tiny bit artful on Wednesday afternoons only, then you are going to delight and revel in The Artful Parent, your easy-to-follow guide with enough ideas to last a lifetime or many afternoons, as fits your family and your mind-set. You will be inspired to raise your children in an art-rich environment that will encourage their creativity, their confidence, and their joyful existence on this planet. All the tools are here. All the suggestions for what works and what doesnt. All the hows and whys and whats. Living artfully will be the finest choice youve ever made for your family, next to reading books at bedtime and putting nutritious meals on the table.

Since that time of teaching second grade years ago, my life has advanced artfully to bringing process art to children all over the world through the books I write and the workshops I give. I have grown in my passion and understanding about the importance of art in a childs life and, beyond that, in a familys shared life. The importance of art goes beyond creativity, beyond exploration, and well beyond fun. An artful life trains the brain to work at finding alternatives and choices, solving problems and testing answers, and bypassing the known or accepted way of doing things to find new ways. An artful life will open the mind of a child and pave the way to becoming an adult who can think about and even create optionswidely and wonderfully and joyfully! We need people with creative minds to keep society forming and reforming in positive ways. The Artful Parent is a tool that encourages thinking and will help you raise creative, productive thinkers and doers.

With this book, we can recognize and launch an artful life with our families. That artful life will be filled with fun and wonder and color and joy and surprises, all wrapped up with a pretty ribbon of commitment and the bright promise of creativity. Join us and become an artful parent, giving your family the gift of a lifetime of creativity.