Setting Up a Home Atelier for Your Budding Artists

Way back when I was promoted from Classroom Teacher to Play-at-Home-Mom, I was inspired to nurture my then two year old aspiring artist. In short, this meant having our art shelves stocked with materials accessible to the shorter members of this household. But as we increased in family size and more of those short people became busy and mobile, I have admittedly fallen a bit short on art center inspiration and implementation. We go through phases of being quite crafty and even engaging in fun and exciting process art activities. We've even studied various artists. I would say that while my kids have such a beautiful and inspiring confidence in their artwork, my own deficit in the area is a lack thereof. I do recall my own fearless creating as a child and somewhere along the line, I intuited that art must "look a certain way," which mine did not and from there I chose creative activities I feel more confident in but largely abandoned that open ended style of creation. I even felt rather inhibited as a teacher in this area. Art was probably for the art teachers, and while opportunities and materials were always available and accessible to my students, I did not necessarily devote as much energy and time into that corner of the classroom.
I do realize in watching my own children as well as my students that most children begin with a sense of wonder and spark of joy when it comes to art. There are surely a variety of colorful personalities within that and many shades of each one. Some children are inherently drawn to drawing. Some are not. Some feel a great deal of confidence and ambition while others are hesitant and reserved. Some will mass produce masterpieces and others are minimalists both in approach and production. But regardless, to me, the greatest importance was the experience itself--whether it was directed or child led, whether it was picture frame worthy or just some scribbles that needed to come out on a page. I worry, however, about children losing both opportunity and confidence in creating art. This, more than anything else, inspires me to preserve and support my own kids' spark of joy in it.
I've increased my own research and studying of teaching and promoting art to very young artists. I also jumped on an opportunity to take an online masterclass in the subject. And while there are so many approaches to art in early childhood and so many pedagogues overall, I am very eclectic overall. I do, however, really appreciate the Reggio-Emilia approach to setting up an atelier [fancy-schmancy word meaning a studio or workshop for one to create and design]. And since I always need yet another project on a Sunday, I tackled our own art shelves at full force and created our own family atelier.

So come on in and take a peek inside our playroom, a space not only for play but also for creation and exploration!

I sent my husband and the kids on a mission while they were at Walmart to bring home paint samples in all of the rainbow colors plus black and brown. Taped to our shelves, these help navigate and designate space where materials for mark-making in each color are stored. Separating colors and color groups helps them to be visible and easily accessed. It also encourages more planning in artwork as the children will need to think about what colors they want to use and what materials as opposed to picking out of a container full of all different colors or mediums (which also has its merit). It can encourage mixed medium work as opposed to works done all in crayon or marker alone. 
For Y it is also an opportunity to work on learning his colors. Many young children struggle with color names and identification because they are rarely isolated in our environment. Furthermore, one word, "green," can describe a multitude of shades and hues. In that sense, I never worry when young children confuse color names or have a harder time identifying them at first.
When it comes to artwork, we often see a plain piece of standard size white paper. For some art and artists, this is adequate. But for some artists who may be more reluctant, I've found that size matters. And color. And texture. So I like to include as many "canvas" options as possible--even canvas itself and temporary art surfaces like mirror trays or empty frames. I also have a hard time setting out this many options if I store them horizontally, as the only thing visible would be what is on top. I used to keep a three-tiered tray of papers for writing and drawing, but even that was limiting. Using a file sorter was the perfect solution. It is able to hold a variety of papers, trays, frames and canvases so they are easily seen and accessed. I included white paper in heavier marker weight, newsprint weight, photo paper with a glossy finish, graph paper, black card stock, colored cardstock in a variety of sizes, origami (origami lovers are cringing), tracing paper and canvases in a couple of sizes. 




I also used the file sorters to store mirror trays, empty picture frames and paint trays. Also accessible are a jar with several kinds of scissors, a bowl with glue sticks and a variety of tapes, a tape dispenser with clear tape and a couple of bottles of liquid glue.
I keep our family's sketch books and some stick bound journals we made accessible on another shelf for works of art that they wish to preserve in that way rather than on a wall. I love sketchbooks and journals for their ability to capture the story of their artist/author over time. It is so special to be able to look back over the months and even years and see how we have grown and changed. It is also a great portable option for taking art on the go, a topic I look forward to exploring and writing on more in the future.

 I like offering as many "real" art materials to children as I can, so while we do have the standard crayons and markers and colored pencils available, they also experience quality chalks and oil pastels and charcoal pencils. These tiny plastic drawers are a great storage option and the recycled sushi trays above them are great for transport of chosen materials from shelf to work surface. They can be used for paint, loose parts, drying smaller works of art and more. They are also a great way to encourage portion control when it comes to collage materials. Empty glass bottles are readily available for the boys to fill with water when they paint. A couple of mountable hooks stuck to the side of the shelf hold some art smocks should the boys want to cover up. Y is always game for sporting a smock (and just about any type of uniform for that matter). S does not like to cover up and unless we are using a permanent medium that will surely stain or wearing something that one of us would mind getting stained, I don't push it. I also stack a set of art mats (dollar store vinyl placemats) and larger trays for protecting/designating work spaces. And that brings me to the paint...

Tempera paints are now set out in condiment bottles and a jar is stocked with a variety of brushes and tools for painting with. A few watercolor pallets are also ready for use. This was the area that first and most drew the boys in. It is also the area that so far has required the most troubleshooting and I'll be sharing more about that in a future post.

Another area that I'd like to expand on in the future is our shelf of loose parts for design and creation. I currently have jars stocked with beads, sequins, plastic gems and assorted buttons. The boys, seeing the beads at first, were initially inspired to create jewelry and asked for beading elastic. I'd also like to include some wire working in the future. I would love for them to explore loose parts for the purpose of design in addition to creating permanent pieces. Y naturally does this whereas S already has an association with these being used solely for crafting in a more "traditional" sense. Some creative provocations and invitations would be a great way for us all to expand our pallet here. This is also a shelf that will likely shift more frequently. Some materials will probably always be out and available and others I'd like to rotate and change to follow our interests over time.

There are many kinks to iron out. The boys are showing me what needs to be added, what needs to be altered, where I have lacked in giving over a lesson and where I have become too rigid and overbearing. But this journey could not have begun at a more opportune time. Y has always loved artwork and using different mediums to create it. More and more he is also embracing his growing independence and being able to do things "byself," as he puts it. He has become increasingly confident in drawing lines and even circles. He also has observed from his brother that these things go together to represent other things, so he will take his crayon or marker or paint to the paper and say "this is a vacuum" or "this is a snowball." Sometimes his picture somewhat resembles his label (as in the case of the snowball, which was indeed a large circle) and other times it does not (as in the case with the vacuum, which was a long, zigzagging brown line across the page or paper).

S has always been a bit less prone to art activities. He will participate in a directed activity, he sometimes even would choose to make something on his own, but if given the choice of something else to do, he often would pick that something else. There were also certain mediums he was more drawn to than others. He has always enjoyed beading and sewing and sculpting--any type of very fine motor art and the engineering end of it as well. He also always loved cutting (and was quite proficient at it early on) and hole punching and gluing. He was not as confident in drawing and writing, but when this guy gets his confidence, he rolls with it. Sure enough, kindergarten has taken him to new heights of writing and drawing. And that confidence and its accompanying interest level have also spilled over into other art forms--especially painting and messy art. These used to be areas he'd be hesitant in at first. He really needed time to be able to ease into it and options to wipe/wash hands as he worked.

Before beginning my atelier overhaul, I considered what was most important to us in that space. I knew I wanted the space to be accessible--for the boys to be able to easily take what they need, use it and return it to its home. I wanted the space to be aesthetically pleasing to inspire and nurture the beauty that is a young child's creation and design. I also needed to consider our overall space, being that this is just one component of our home and that our home happens to be rather small. An atelier is never a stagnant space and especially in working with a home environment, and a smaller one at that, there would need to be ways for the boys to easily transport materials from here to there.  I would need to provide the right materials to get from conception to creation to completion and clean-up. And, as I would quickly learn upon its first unveiling, it would require a quite a few other supporting measures as well, but that's a topic for my next post...


If this happens to inspire your own redesign of a home or classroom art space or even if you'd just like to read more on the subject, I love this article on How to Save Space with a One Shelf Atelier by Sally Haughey of Fairy Dust Teaching. In addition to working with a small space, I also operate on a restricted budget. I did not go out and buy a whole bunch of new supplies. Short crayons work just as well as longer ones. Swinging for higher quality supplies when possible does save you in the long-run, and you can save on these by taking advantage of sales, coupons and even secondhand shops. Thrift stores and the Dollar Store are great places to find containers, trays, some art and craft supplies, loose parts, frames, and more. Friends and relatives might also be a good resource for donations of supplies and recycled materials. And don't discount the hardware section of your local big box store or even your local hardware store itself! Nature is always a ready supplier of useful materials for creative work. While the aesthetics of an atelier space and the supplies within it are of importance, the most important thing is what happens in that space. An atelier is a space for creation, design and, of course, play.



I'll be back tomorrow with some additional tips (and trials) of setting up a home or classroom atelier. And until then...

Happy Playing!