My mommy/pastel on paper, with the young artist and her mom, Iseult, in Zagreb.

ZAGREB, Croatia – All was chaos in my quiet two-bedroom apartment one late Friday afternoon.

I was supposed to be assessing the artistic level of my friend Agnes’ four-year-old daughter, so I could figure out which kid’s class to put her in. But Agnes’ two-year-old son was tearing around the house, screaming and yelling with glee and terrorizing my cat. I was finishing reviewing the speech of Dora Fila, a young woman who runs a specialty tour company in Zagreb, who was giving a speech at the International Women’s Club (of which I was a standing board member, though that’s another story). She had just come from a day of translating another workshop, and was quite harried.

Then suddenly, Agnes’ husband arrived and whisked the little boy away.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh….” We heard him scream, and then a car door slam shut, and then … silence.

Agnes, her daughter, and the young woman all looked at me wearily.

“Would you like to learn how to draw a bird?” I asked them all, gently. It just came out. I hadn’t planned it. The only one scheduled to do art that day was Agnes’ daughter.

Without a word, the two women and one small girl walked into my studio and sat in front of an easel.  I taught them how to draw a bird, which they then spent the next two hours coloring in as they pleased. Where before there were four conversations going on simultaneously, now there was only the rhythmic scratching of pen on paper. It was very, very nice. Everyone drew good birds.

And that, quite simply, cemented something I now feel I always knew: kids and adults should learn art together.

**

I wasn’t always a proponent of teaching children. But it seemed, children were always following me.

When I taught my first pastel class ever in Budapest, Hungary, all my students were adults except for 11-year-old Emil. His mom Jennifer asked if he could try it. I told her he was welcome, but that I’d expect him to put in the same time and concentration in that the adults did.

And Emil did. It was very cute to see this young bespectacled boy seriously tackling the assignment I have given the class – to draw a lily. His result was so good, his mom made greeting cards out of it, and while I’ve moved around many places, I keep a couple of copies with me wherever I go.

11 year old Emil's lily, immortalized in this card. He insisted his mother keep the testing marks below because it was part of the art.

Ah, but Emil was a special case, I told myself. Not all kids are like that.

Then I moved to Yerevan, Armenia, where I lived and taught art for two years. My friend Hasmik asked me to offer lessons for her son, Argi, who was nine years old. He had been shaken up by a burglary at his house – the robber had come through his bedroom window! – and he asked his mom for drawing lessons. “Something to help me relax,” he told her.

So I took on Argi. Once or twice a week, he and his non-English speaking grandpa would trudge to my studio. I’d give him all the same activities I assigned to the adult students (because I really didn’t know how to teach differently). He pushed me to show him more – after practicing drawing faces, he did a masterpiece of his grandfather (who had conveniently fallen asleep on my couch, so was an exceptional model).

Ah, but Argi and Emil are special cases, I told myself.

Then I moved to Zagreb, Croatia. A lovely Irish woman named Iseult joined my art classes, she said, to “keep up with her five-year-old daughter’s art classes.” Soon after, I decided to offer a Mother-daughter portrait drawing class, and five-year-old Sadbh (pronounced “Sigh-be”), was the youngest but by far the most dogged in the group. She produced a stellar portrait of her mom, and she began coming to the adult classes regularly with her mother.

Then a French family, the Lehes, signed up for an intensive art week during a French School Holiday. One my regular adult students, Sandrine would work on her own projects while I’d show her three young children how to draw animals, do landscapes and city scapes. All week, we worked hard every day (Sandrine was a hard worker). Her kids followed suit. They would leave after several hours, exhausted but happy.

Now, besides the fact that I adore Emil, Argi, Sadbh and the Lehe family to pieces – they are extraordinary children – I was beginning to wonder whether they were in fact, the exception, or the rule in keeping up in art class.

I got a chance to test that theory soon after in Zagreb when four moms and their kids signed up to take art lessons together with me. Called “Family Art,” it was by far one of the most dynamic and interesting classes I ever taught, with students ranging in age from three-year-old Kylie up through her 60-something grandma, Kory.

Argi's grandpa/2009/pastel, pencil and ink on paper/Argishti Avetisyan, Yerevan, Armenia

I usually started with the same drawing lesson, which everyone did. Then the adults broke off into their art projects, and the kids would have a choice – they could work quietly on their own paintings side by side with their parents, or work with a separate teacher I hired to do arts and crafts.

Many, many miraculous things happened in that Family Art Class. For one thing, the kids, without exception and no matter how young, learned how to work independently side-by-side with their parents, FOR HOURS AT A TIME! It usually took a couple of classes: when kids were new, they tended to get bored the first class or two, and then clingy. They’d grab their mother’s pen out of her hand and scribble on her drawing. They’d whine. They’d fuss.

But I explained the studio rules to them (issued to me by Iseult, who could see this class coming a mile off):
No touching someone else’s paper unless you get permission (including your mom’s).

No making fun of anyone’s drawing – including your own.

Respect your own imagery.

After about two classes, the kid stopped disrupting their parent, and began modeling after the parent – drawing on their own, or working with a teacher on a craft, or sitting at the easel next to their parent and working on their own project. It was empowering for the kids to be doing the same lesson as their parents, for at least part of the class. The parents got to move forward on more complex projects, without having to worry or watch their kids all the time. The class, which started Mondays at 6 p.m., would go for several hours (sometimes involving, for the grownups, a bottle of wine or two).

Everyone got very relaxed about art. Everyone, without exception, got better at art. It became one of my favorite parts of the week.

**

Conventional wisdom on teaching art has you divide children up by age when teaching drawing and painting. The younger children will get frustrated that they can’t do what the older children can do, the theory goes. It made perfect sense to me at the time, but the more I experience the multi-age dynamic, the more I prefer it.

Nina started taking art lessons with Baby Freda in Zagreb in January. What a great experience for mom and child!

I moved to New York City in February, and what interests me is that my family art classes are definitely not catching on here as quickly as they have in other places. In New York, I’ve been advised, the adults want you to treat their child like a little genius, a movie star, or a major talent. I don’t know if that’s true, but  I am fundamentally against such ideas. I think it’s silly to treat a child any differently than an adult in the class (except, in some cases, in what they are physically able to do). I think children don’t want to be held up on pedestals. They want to spend time with the adults in their lives, and they learn by watching and mimicking the adults in their lives learn.

All I know is that now, my ideal class has an age range from 3-80, and when I look out I don’t see young child-serious adult. I just see art students.

Leah Kohlenberg is an artist, writer, and frequent flier who is currently living in Brooklyn, New York. You don’t have to be in New York to take classes, though: Leah is offering online art courses and art consultations! For more details, visit: http://artistholidays.wordpress.com/

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