The Healing Power of Children's Art

I love it when prominent medical institutions publish articles validating children's art as a tool for healing. Psychology Today did just that (today!) with this article by Charlotte Reznick, PhD, a child educational psychologist and associate clinical professor of psychology at UCLA. She provides some great ways to develop therapeutic art techniques with your child ...

"Since the first cave paintings, we humans have found creative ways to express ourselves with art. We naturally draw, paint, and doodle to capture thoughts and feelings. Art has also been used throughout history for healing. Studies show that it creates brain wave patterns that enhance the autonomic nervous system, hormonal balance, and brain neurotransmitters. While doing artistic expressive art, the body's physiology shifts from stressed to serene.

The same for children. It's often easier for a child to talk about pictures than about himself or his feelings (grief, anger, shame, etc.). Drawing and painting will allow your child to express difficult feelings or to disclose what he might not share verbally. His artistic expression can give you a clearer sense of his inner struggle, an insight that will help you guide him.

Drawing also increases your child's awareness of her inner world and creates a window onto that landscape. Art can be a launching point for conversations that reveal her thinking about the world around her.

You don't have to be a trained therapist to use therapeutic art techniques with your child. Just stock up on a variety of supplies - giant rolls of paper, colored paper, crayons, paints, and a variety of markers, including scented, metallic, fat, thin, even markers that change color as they write over another color. Then try the following art exercises to explore new ways to communicate with your child.

Draw a self-portrait. On a large sheet of paper, trace your young child's body. Have her fill it in with her feelings. Happy might be a bright yellow sun near her heart; sad may be blue teardrops coming from her eyes. Older children can design and complete their own. You might be surprised at what and where emotions turn up.

Picture the future. Artwork is also an effective starting point when you're working with clear end-goals, like getting a good night's sleep or reducing a fear. Suggest your child make two drawings - how things are now and how he'd like them to be. Once he can picture where he'd like to be, he can start taking steps to get there. And he can hang his pictures in his bedroom as a reminder of the possible positive future.

Show and tell. After an imaginary journey, such as a walk through a special place she imagines with her eyes shut, have your child draw her experience. The visual rendering gives you both something to look at as she shares. If the drawing illustrates a problem - say, a dangerous goblin or a fire at home - ask her to imagine what might solve the situation. She can even draw the solution right onto her picture.

Talk to the image. Once your child has released his feelings onto paper, he can speak with them. He might use his picture of Worry to ask what it needs to calm down, or to tell it to leave. It's often easier to converse with feelings when they're outside than when they're gnawing away inside, at for example, a stressed-out tummy.

Take artistic action. Although it's a great release when a child can draw her angry, hurt, or upset feelings, pictures don't have to be static. She can erase part of it, or draw over it in "healing" colors with a changeable marker - an immediate transformation that feels magical. She can even rip up or throw away the paper. These actions can offer a hurting child a sense of control and satisfaction.

Capture the memory. The special places your child visits on his imaginary journeys can be personal healing sanctuaries. Hanging pictures of them somewhere private but visible will remind him that he can return whenever the need arises. And drawings of trusted animal friends and wizards may help him remember support is always near.

Accept every drawing. Some kids are hesitant to put their mental pictures to paper; they're afraid they won't be good be enough. Reassure your child that anything he creates is fine. Sometimes all that comes are strokes of bold color evolving out of a wonderful or terrible feeling that is finally set free on paper. Praise each one. They are the artifacts of your child's precious inner world."

Published with kind permission from Charlotte Reznick, PhD, a child educational psychologist, an associate clinical professor of psychology at UCLA, and author of a new book, The Power of Your Child's Imagination: How to Transform Stress and Anxiety into Joy and Success (Perigee/Penguin2009).

T-me Direct - Frugal For You

Frugal is the new black. Gone are the days of endless credit card shopping ... we're lean, mean careful-spending machines and we're going to stay that way, right?

Poloppo is celebrating the frugal-forever attitude by bringing our design-your-own t-shirt process for kids into a direct order system that won't tax the piggy bank.

T-me Direct enables you to order a t-shirt with your child's artwork printed on it for a lean $21.50 (for kids' tees, $26.50 for adults tees). Just select the t-shirt style and size and once you place the order we'll send you a link to upload your child's art to us ... or you can simply post it to us.

Once we receive the artwork we'll not only send you the precious t-shirt that will bring the cutest smile to your proud little Picasso's face, but we'll also send you the artwork in a format you can upload to your iPhone as wallpaper - for free (for a limited time only). Don't have an iPhone? Just send it to someone who does ... they'll love it!

PS. We still have our super-fun T-me Kits (now at $32.50) ... these are ideal birthday and holiday gifts!

Cool tools for aspiring artists

"I can't draw!" Adults say it all the time. While most grown-ups worry that our representations aren't realistic enough or our line quality might waver, children will just pick up a crayon or a pencil and start making marks. A little practice, and the marks add up to an individual style of communicating their fantasies and realities.

"Drawing is the most expressive of mediums," wrote Nancy Beal, a well-known New York art teacher, in her book, The Art of Teaching Art to Children. Drawing provides "a direct route outward from a child's heart," she added.

Children draw what they love, whether it's from life or from imagination. In a child's drawing, you can ride a bus to school, ride your own bulldozer, or just fly. You can see your family members just as they are, see them with purple hair in a room full of candy, or see right through them with X-ray vision.

Whether your child is just getting started with drawing or it's time to broaden your young artist's technical horizons with some new drawing materials, try a few of Poloppo's favorite pencils, markers, charcoals and crayons. (And while you're at it, why not follow your child's lead? Pick up a new drawing material, forget that you can't draw, and see what happens!)

Pencils

Graphite or colored, hard or soft, pencils are as varied as the artists who use them. Experiment with different hues, shades, and grades of hardness to find out which work best for different projects.

Reeve's Pencil Sets are a beginning artist's standby. Hard, medium, soft and extra soft pencils come packaged together, so you can make bold gesture lines, fine contour lines, and precision shading. Sets of 6, 10, 12 or 13 pencils come pre-sharpened, so you can get started drawing as soon as you open the package.

Faber Castell's factory in Brazil operates its own tree nursery to ensure that its Grip Pencils are made from renewable, reforested wood. Soft grip-dots make the vibrantly colored pencils non-slip and easy to hold; their triangular shape keeps them from rolling off the table.

Charcoal

Charcoal makes lush, dark, velvety lines that you can't get with any other medium.

Winsor & Newton Vine & Willow Charcoal Packs contain sticks of compressed charcoal that you can smudge, smear, and even wipe off.

For kids who want to try charcoal but like to keep their hands clean, try General's All-Charcoal Drawing Set. The assortment of soft, medium, and hard charcoal pencils includes a sharpener, an eraser, and a white charcoal stick for making lighter shades of gray.

Markers

From professional crafters to inventive teens to babies, there's a just-right marker for everyone.

Crafters and kids both favor Tombow Dual Brush Markers, a two-in-one drawing tool with a fine-tip marker at one end and a point like a watercolor brush at the other end. The inks wash onto paper like watercolor paint, and you can blend them to make custom shades or use a brush dipped in water to soften the colors.

Two- and three-year-olds love to draw, but if your toddler's idea of coloring outside the lines means coloring the floor, their clothes and their skin, don't worry. Crayola Washable Markers are so washable they seem like magic. Ink-marked hands and faces come entirely clean with the stroke of a baby wipe, and marks disappear from clothing in one wash. Broad-line or fine-tip markers are widely available in stores, even well-stocked grocery stores, so they're perfect when you need to pick up a last-minute party activity.

Crayons

The wax crayon hasn't changed much since it debuted in 1903, but a few recent innovations have caught our eye.

Crayon Rocks look like overgrown jelly beans but they're really rock-shaped crayons. They're handmade, rounded nuggets of soft, non-toxic soybean wax. The easily graspable rocks allow children with compromised fine-motor skills to get a better grip on an art-making tool.

If you've ever wondered why you child's crayons and paints are still made from petroleum products while your company's been printing its marketing materials with soy-based ink for a few years now, check out Stockmar Beeswax Crayons. These vibrantly colored, pleasant-smelling, break-resistant crayons are made without any petroleum-based ingredients.

Re-T-me!

Poloppo is always looking for ways to encourage children's natural creativity, so we were pretty excited when we created the reusable packaging for our T-me design-your-own-t-shirt kit. It's a sturdy piece of cardboard shaped like a t-shirt, which kids can easily recycle into an easel-style picture frame.

We're even more excited that some of our creative young customers came up with ideas for reusing T-me packaging that we hadn't even thought of.

Piper from Kansas made her T-me kit into a laptop using colored Sharpies. Nico from California made his T-me kit into a tunnel for his wooden trains.

We put our heads together and thought of a few more ways you can reuse you T-me kit:

- Add a binder clip or two, and you have a portfolio to carry your drawings in
- Put it on the floor upside-down as a hurdle to jump over
- Fold the t-shirt arms halfway in and staple them to each other to make a funny hat
- Open it all the way up to make butterfly wings
- Glue on sequins or add jewel stickers to make a handbag

At Poloppo, we think the power of creativity can change the world. And changing a t-shirt shaped cardboard into a unique work of art is as good a place to start as any. If you come up with a creative use for your T-me package, send us a picture! We'll send you a free T-me kit to show our appreciation.

T-me! DYO t-shirt kits ... especially for kids.

If you like Poloppo's wearable art by children, you'll love our new wearable art - made by your own kids!

You asked us, and we listened. We've had so many parents ask, "How can we get our own children's artwork onto a great t-shirt?" We decided to make it easy for you.

T-me Design-Your-Own is a do-it-yourself kit that includes everything your child needs to design his or her own wearable artwork. She can draw a picture using the markers and papers in the kit, choose her favorite t-shirt style from the enclosed catalog, and mail the drawing to us in the pre-paid return envelope. In 10 days, she'll receive her very own wearable art.

Kids can get creative straight away, or they can send in something they've already drawn. Kids can get their artwork printed on American Apparel t-shirts for themselves, friends, siblings, and even Mom and Dad. Look for more styles in '09.

The kit's unique t-shirt-shaped packaging converts into an easel-style picture frame so kids can easily display their favorite artwork.

T-me is a great holiday gift for children of any age. It even comes with a gift tag that says, "With many best wishes from ...", so you can personalize it before it gets to your favorite young artist.

T-me is now on sale at select kids' boutiques or online here.

Decision 2008, Kid-style

Upload your election drawings to the Poloppo gallery and you could receive a t-shirt with your artwork on it!

Kids, even though you need to wait till you're 18 to vote, Poloppo wants to help show the world what's on your mind as the election nears.

Which candidate do you support? Which local ballot measures are important to you and your family? Have you heard the candidates say something that you like or don't like?

The decisions your parents and other adults make on Nov. 4 will affect things that are important to you: the way things work in your school, the way we care for our planet and our health. Decisions we make now can even affect whether we're at war or at peace when you become an adult.

Whether you have a strong opinion or you're still weighing your options, we'd like to know what you think about the election.

Scan and upload your drawing of a candidate (either national or local) or a picture of your thoughts about what the election means to you. Include your first name, age, email address and the city and state where you live. Your drawing can be made with pencils, crayons, markers, chalk, or your favorite drawing materials.

We'll publish the drawings we receive on Poloppo's blog next week and the first 20 entrants will receive a free DYO t-shirt voucher (that means we'll print a piece of your artwork onto a cool t-shirt). Entries close at 5p.m. EST on Nov. 4.

Meanwhile, here are some election links for kids:

Time For Kids introduces the Democratic and Republican candidates and their ideas.

Barack Obama's Kids For Obama
page has video interviews with middle-schoolers and a printable campaign logo coloring sheet.

Check out the Scholastic News Kid Reporters live election-coverage webcast Nov. 7.

Catch a breeze ... it's kite season!

Maybe you're a kid at the beach with a simple one-line kite. Maybe you're a well-built grown-up maneuvering a giant squid kite in the breeze using so many strings you look like a marionette handler. Or maybe you just like to relax in a lawn chair and watch a wondrous Chinese dragon kite soaring on the breeze. Choose your fancy. Kites are for everyone. Whether you want to watch way-larger-than-life teddy-bear kites fly at a festival this summer, make and decorate your own kite, or just buy one and start flying, here are a few ideas to get you started.

Kites in the past
Kites are used mostly for recreation these days. When you're flying your kite, you're doing one of the same things people did for fun in ancient Japan and medieval Europe (and still do pretty much everywhere else around the world). But kites have also been used for serious business. During the Civil War, the Union Army dropped messages with kites asking the Confederate Army to surrender, and the Wright brothers flew big, sturdy man-lifting kites on the way to inventing the airplane.

Make your own kite
It's easy to make your own kite out of a few things you probably already have around the house. Here are some instructions for a small kite that flies beautifully in a moderate breeze. Young Poloppo artists have tried these and loved them. Or, if you're looking to recycle all those plastic bags cluttering up your kitchen drawers, you can turn them into a lightweight, easy-to-fly kite.

Decorate your own kite
Remember that kites are seen from afar, so bold colors and designs tend to work best. Try using 2-4 colors in big stripes or quadrants. Animating kites with eyes can be fun too. You could imagine a kite as any flying creature; a bird, dragon, pegasus or even some other fictitious flying creature of your own invention.

Go spy a kite
There are hundreds of kite festivals where you can purchase kites, learn to make them, and watch stunt kiters and kite ballet artists perform. Try googling your local kite festival and get ready to fly!

Go buy a kite
You can buy a kite at just about any toy store or department store. If you're thinking about buying a specialty kite, here are a few great kite stores and their web sites:

Into the Wind, Boulder, Colorado

Kitty Hawk Kites, Nags Head, North Carolina

Colors on the Wind, Spokane, Washington