There are many advantages to teaching children how to produce artwork from an early age and to encourage them to continue to express themselves via art later on in life. Some of them are:

• Gives children and adults an understanding of perspective and shapes

• Encourages observational skills

• Builds fine motor skills

• Encourages mathematical understanding of shape and design and pattern as does music of rhythm and pattern and beat

• Teaches children how to identify and note distinguishing features of objects, people and other living things

• Can even simply teach a child not to be scared of the dark as the colours and shapes of things in the dark only appear to be different

• Can be used as a cathartic option in a stressful world

• Encourages individual expression and expression of opinions in a social situation, especially if exhibiting

While there are many more reasons for encouraging art I have left it to these critical few. The reasons to teach children are plainly seen when adults who haven’t been taught early on attempt to undertake any form of art. The skills picked up from early efforts in pre-school and primary school are evident. Some knowledge of space and light is present as are some abilities to convert a 4D scene into an image on a 2D surface. The absence of these skills is rare. That said; the confidence in the adult’s ability to undertake any of these actions is severely undermined. What is usually said when someone is asked to do any art and they haven’t been taught properly on is “I’m not any good at it”, “I can’t do that”, “I wasn’t born with any artistic skills’, “I don’t know what to do”, “I’m not as good as you”, “people say what I make is crap”. These statements are the telltale sign of uncertainty, a lack of confidence, misunderstanding what is being asked and basically a sad lack in art education.

Art can be applied to so many things, from IT graphics and designing websites to book publishing, scientific research and diagnosis to advertising which affects a rather significant portion of the business world. To know how to wield a pencil and paintbrush may well help a doctor to understand how a patient is responding to treatment for any issue with fine motor skills. Wiggly lines don’t always mean you are shaking and unsteady. Just like a polygraph won’t always reveal the truth, especially if the person strapped to it and being grilled about personal subjects is stressed out. That said art seems to still have a stigma on it and is undervalued both in its contribution to modern society, in its role in the development of any civilised or sophisticated society and also in the pricing of the average artwork.

This undervaluing of art as apposed to science, law or any other non-humanities based (the humanities share to a degree the same stigma as art in today’s society) undertaking can be very unfortunate on an individual level while it is definitely so on a social level. Every child should learn how to produce art and be taught how to be confident in expressing themselves in as many ways as possible, including with pencil and brush. This can only lead to happier people and to a more talented and understanding workforce.