Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Artistic creativity in your gifted child

Art is one of those areas where I kind of feel like a shitty mom. LoL.

I love(d) art. I was pretty good at it too. In high school I chose to pursue computers, so I left off drawing for the most part and switched to photography, but when I was younger I drew constantly. I won numerous school contests, had my work displayed in local businesses, got to work on an installation for MayFest, etc... I was always super duper critical of myself though.. and I think it spills over onto my kids. I always try and praise their creativity, but I always think all their drawings just look like "kid drawings" if that makes sense, lol. I do see, though, that some of the stuff DS9 is doing seems advanced. He was considered the class artist last year, which he was quite proud of!

My son is amazingly creative storyteller/author. Just about everyone notices it. He's been writing "books" since he was 4. He also writes poetry and 'makes movies.' He's not very good at drawing, imo.... his fine motor skilss are pretty low. But he is a pretty amazing creative writer.

DD6 could draw people pretty early, and was intensely crafty by two or three. I'd say she's an okay artist right now but when she focuses she's pretty advanced and always very creative, how she puts supplies to different and unexpected uses, etc. She did an amazing painting of nature habitats last year that got a lot of comments from friends who paint. She can also make up songs and poems off the cuff with amazing rhythm, rhyme, and imagery. A lot of her craftiness goes into her desire to be an engineer, which I'm less able to support than early childhood art or literary studies, but hey ho I do my best.

I'm about a three to four year old on that chart epoh posted too! Ds5 seems to draw about as well as I do, but is very creative in writing, inventing, music, etc. I have seen no correlation between drawing and giftedness in him. We both draw pretty rudimentary stick figures. He leans toward drawing very schematic plans, labeling everything to make up for his lack of ability to represent things well. We did get a late start in coloring in this house though. I didn't even give him paper and crayon till he was at least 2.5-3.