Growth Mindset in Art - What You NEED to Know!
Growth mindset in art is really relevant to kids and artists. It's important to have a healthy growth mindset in Art. With young kids we really want to teach about growth mindset at an early age. Growth mindset is such an important topic to teach your students or your kids and art is a great way to teach about growth mindset. You can learn more about growth mindset in art and all of these different ideas by reading more below.
What is Growth Mindset?
A growth mindset in art refers to the belief that artistic skills, creativity, and talent can be developed and improved over time through dedication, practice, and learning from mistakes. It contrasts with a fixed mindset, which assumes that artistic ability is something you're either born with or not, and that it cannot be significantly changed.
Growth Mindset in Art
The Benefits:
Embracing Challenges
Seek Out Difficult Tasks: Artists with a growth mindset are more likely to embrace challenges, whether it’s experimenting with a new medium, tackling a complicated subject, or trying out unfamiliar techniques.
View Struggles as Opportunities: Instead of seeing difficult tasks as evidence of a lack of talent, artists with a growth mindset see them as opportunities to grow and improve their skills.
Learning from Mistakes
Mistakes Are Part of the Process: In a growth mindset, mistakes aren’t seen as failures but as valuable learning experiences. Every mistake is a step toward improvement, offering insights into what works and what doesn’t.
Revisions and Iterations: Artists with a growth mindset are open to revising their work multiple times, refining their techniques as they learn more with each attempt.
Effort Equals Improvement
Hard Work Pays Off: A growth mindset emphasizes that effort and persistence are the keys to improvement in art. The more time and energy put into practicing, the more an artist can develop their skills.
Continuous Learning: Artists with a growth mindset are committed to lifelong learning, whether that means taking classes, learning from other artists, or regularly practicing their craft.
Constructive Criticism
Feedback Is Valuable: Growth-minded artists see feedback from teachers, peers, or even self-evaluation as essential to growth. They view constructive criticism as helpful rather than discouraging.
Seek Opportunities to Improve: They actively seek out critiques, suggestions, and resources to identify areas they can improve on rather than avoiding feedback out of fear.
Patience and Persistence
Art Takes Time: A growth mindset acknowledges that becoming proficient in art doesn’t happen overnight. Artists understand that developing their craft is a long-term process and are patient with themselves.
Resilience: Growth-minded artists are resilient when they encounter setbacks. They bounce back from failed attempts, knowing that persistence will lead to progress.
Focus on Progress Over Perfection
Celebrate Improvement: Instead of aiming for perfection, growth-minded artists focus on progress. They celebrate small wins, such as mastering a new technique or finishing a challenging piece.
Process Over Outcome: They value the artistic journey itself—learning, exploring, and experimenting—more than just the final product.
Use the Creative Process to Teach Growth Mindset in Art
Teach about growth mindset by using the creative process. You are teaching your student or child how to apply growth mindset when they are creating art. Part of the creative process is brainstorming ideas researching ideas, exploring and experimenting with materials and techniques creating a rough sketch or a rough copy to plan out their design, creating a final copy of their artwork, asking for feedback, and then applying feedback to improve their artwork and create a finished piece of art.
How to Cultivate a Growth Mindset in Art:
Practice Regularly: It's important for your child or student to practice regularly. You can give them a sketchbook and some drawing materials and let them draw daily. You can give them a prompt like drawing an animal or a landscape or let older children draw what they like to but the practice of drawing regularly or making art regularly will help them improve as an artist.
Experiment: It's important to let your child or students experiment with not only the materials that they are using, but also the different art techniques, and types of art that they are exposed to. Offer them a variety of different materials and techniques to try and exposing them to different types of artists and different art forms will broaden their horizons and get them to really question and appreciate what art is. This in turn will make them more creative as an individual and have better and more unique ideas.
Reflect on Your Progress: It's important to let your child or students really reflect on their progress, show them artwork that they did earlier in the year show them artwork that they did several years ago. Get them to appreciate that with time and practice, as well as persistence and patience they will get better and they will improve.
Learn from Others: It's important to let your child or students learn from others. You don't want them to be their only teacher. Expose them to different art books, art resources, art lessons and art tutorials. You can check out my acrylic painting YouTube channel called Jackie Partridge Art. You can see my TPT store Jackie Partridge Art where I have a variety of different art lessons and art resources. Lastly, feel free to follow me on Pinterest where you can see lots of art inspiration. I've different art lessons you can use with your kids or students.
Welcome Feedback: It's good to let your child or students get used to having art critiques and asking for feedback on their work by listening to feedback and understanding constructive criticism. They are able to apply feedback to improve themselves as artists.
Why do we want our kids and students to have a healthy growth mindset?
We want our kids and students to have a healthy growth mindset because they will feel happier and they will have a healthy overall mental health. When kids are constantly complaining and saying things like I suck at this, I am terrible at art, I'm awful, I can't draw, I can't paint, etc.
They are having a negative fixed mindset and they are feeling and acting like they will never get better at art but that is not the truth; anyone can be good at art it just takes practice persistence and patience you need to be consistently practicing at art in order to improve. You need to be persistent in the effort that you apply to your art in order to get better. You need to have patience because like any learned skill it takes time to improve it takes time to get better at heart and become a better artist.
Growth mindset colouring pages
There are 32 different colouring pages to use with your kids or students when having discussions and learning about growth mindset. Click here to check them out!
Growth Mindset Posters
I have lots of different posters including a bundle where you can save 30% - check out the growth mindset posters you can hang in your home or classroom by clicking here!
Check out my symmetry drawing worksheets to help your child or students improve their drawing. You can print them off and photocopy them to you throughout the year and notice how even if your child does these every single month they will get better as each month progresses. Click the button below to check out my different symmetry drawing.
Download my free figure symmetry, drawing worksheets for students in grades four through seven by clicking on the button below
Follow my TPT store to see more art resources, and freebies by clicking on the button below.