iCandy x Camilla Perkins: Exploring the Natural World with Children's Art Week

Growing up my Mum always encouraged us to be creative, drawing was something that came instinctively to me and I have a really clear memory from when I was at nursery of drawing circle after circle in really bright colours and being really excited about how they all blended in to one big rainbow ball!

Both of my parents were really good at taking my sister and I to exhibitions and museums when we were small children, which I now realise must have been an absolute nightmare as we were so naughty! I particularly remember always wanting to look at the costume section in the Brighton Museum and after my Mum took me to see an exhibition of Matisse’s textiles I came away determined that I would become an Artist too!

I think it’s incredibly important to try and encourage creativity in children, mainly because they have so much fun making things! When my two year old daughter isn’t having a meltdown over something as simple as taking her own sock off her foot, or shouting “Wa doing, DISSTER??” in my 3 month old daughter’s face every five minutes, she loves anything artistic!

I try to do lots of drawing and colouring with her but we also like to go outside and collect leaves to bring home and make prints from, which she loves… for about thirty seconds!

I’m really lucky to have some great kid-friendly places to visit near to where I live in East Sussex. My favourite is Charleston Farmhouse, which has beautiful gardens and during the Charleston Festival has loads of great creative activities put on for children of all ages. I can’t wait for it to be open again!

I also love the Ditching Museum of Art + Craft, I went to a beautiful exhibition of Corita Kent’s work when Wren was only a few months old and even then she was getting excited by all the bold, bright colours!

I think that the natural world is often the most inspiring for children, my daughter is just learning all of her animals and I absolutely love it when she asks me to draw one of the animals we’ve seen or talked about on a walk that day for her to colour in.

I often try and encourage Wren to point out the different colours that she’s been learning in flowers and plants and last time we went to the beach we collected some shells which I’m planning to let her dip in some paint and use as stamps, if she doesn’t try to feed them all to the dog first!

I’m sure anyone with young children can relate to being terrified at the thought of taking their unpredictable toddler into a gallery setting but I think it’s definitely worth giving it a go, even if their attention span will only allow five minutes! I know that it made a real difference to my appreciation of art when I was growing up and so I think it’s a good idea to try and make it a fun experience, I try to work in something that I know Wren would enjoy like counting or naming all of the different colours that she can see. There are so many galleries now days that try to include elements aimed at children so I think it’s worth seeking out places that you will both enjoy.

My passion for illustration was almost entirely influenced by the books I read as a child! There are so many beautiful books out there but my personal favourites as a child were the “Orlando the Marmalade Cat” series by Kathleen Hale and “Madeline” by Ludwig Bemelmans. Flying Eye Books have an amazing selection of Dhalov Ipcar books and my daughter’s current favourite is “Monty and the Poodles” by Katie Harnett. The Tate also does a beautiful series called “Meet the Artist” which are great for introducing children to the art world! I also love any children’s books illustrated by Emily Sutton… You shouldn’t have asked me; I could go on all day!!

I think pens and crayons are always good to have around. My daughter actually went through a phase where she hated anything wet or slimy so I saw someone online had dyed a load of pasta with different coloured paints and left them to dry, then I put them in different sized pans on the floor with some cups and she spent ages filling them up and tipping them out again. That was definitely one of our more successful creative activities!

I think with young children you eventually just have to give in to the mess, it just needs to be contained! I find that oilcloth is a must have, I pretty much constantly have it on the table or chuck it on the floor, all in one bibs are pretty vital too! I also find that my daughter likes (attempting!) to clear up with a cloth when we’ve finished painting, it’s part of the game for her!

I really love Crayola twistable crayons, as they’re quite hardy and last a long time. I’ve also found that having a big roll of brown craft paper is really useful for taping down underneath the paper that she’s using as she tends to enjoy drawing everywhere other than the actual piece of paper! Sometimes we draw straight onto the square of brown paper and you can use it to wrap presents, I like the idea of putting something she’s created to use rather than either throwing them away or being forgotten about in a pile somewhere. My mother in law recently introduced me to these precut out paper bodies that you can buy so I’m excited to see if Wren enjoys drawing clothes on them!

I can really only speak from my own experience of being encouraged creatively as a child, which played a huge role in my life. I think art allows children to learn important lessons in expressing themselves creatively, problem solving, and more importantly it’s so much fun! I remember as a child, the first time I visited the sculpture room at the V&A and being completely in awe of these huge structures that I couldn’t believe were actually made by a person! I really want my girls to be able to feel that way when they see a piece of work that they love, or create it themselves. I think that creating things gives you a sense of freedom and joy that is absolutely vital to your overall wellbeing!