Ever since I started painting again, my kids, my niece and my niece’s best friend have been asking me to teach them to paint. I’m not actually very patient as a teacher in most things, and have sent my 9-year-old to both a sewing and cupcake decorating class because I knew I’d want to throttle her before it was done due to my lack of patience. For some reason though, I don’t have that issue with painting.

My niece’s best friend’s first landscape

I’m guessing it’s because of what I believe to be fundamentally true about art: anyone can do it, everyone should do it, and only one person needs to enjoy it and that’s the artist themselves. That’s why my personal heroes are the artists who open up the doors and work to show everyone that anyone can be an artist. In teaching my nieces, I have often adopted Bob Ross’ wonderful attitude of there being no mistakes, just “happy little accidents.” As such, I do not try too hard to teach my daughters, my niece and her friend. I simply show them how to apply paint to a canvas and if they make a mistake, how to work it into the piece and be happy instead of fretting over it!

My 6-year-old loves painting her family!

 This weekend my niece’s friend wanted to paint a picture to give to her mother for Mother’s Day, so I pulled out one of my smaller canvases and let her have it to paint. She had printed a picture of a seascape that she wanted to paint, so I grabbed one of my other canvases and proceeded to walk her through how to recreate the picture in acrylics. The one above is mine and I didn’t get a chance to scan hers as we used blending gel so her was still wet when it was time for them to return home.  

My niece is a rose fanatic!

Still, she did very well and since I can’t show that, I thought I should be the proud teacher and show off other works of my ’students’ in this post!

My nine-year-old wants to make landscapes like daddy!

I am very happy to be able to share and inspire others to explore their artistic side, especially my daughters, and I definitely couldn’t be prouder of my ’students’! Please let them know what you think of their work!