Fanciful Dragons Made By Students

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the value of letting kids create art that reflects their vision of the fantasy world. I’ve found that having children create the “unknown” from their imagination helps them conceptualize characters and places they’ve experienced only through their minds-eye.

Dragons are another fantasy creature that kids love to create. I always share a variety of images with the students in my classes but they don’t copy those things. In fact, because when we work with clay we are working in three dimensions, even the most graphic illustrations of something like a dragon fall short of the creations kids realize when they make a sculpture of their dragon.

I also find that dragons are popular with kids at a variety of ages. Their attention span may vary and influence the degree of detail they develop in their piece. But you can see from these pictures that even a small amount of detail results in a very individualized project.

So encourage kids to draw and build things beyond the realm of what they see and experience every day at home and in school. Let them create from their imaginations and explore their creativity. You’ll be amazed at the results and you might start to sees a little differently too.