Failure is a good thing.
Yes, you read that right. Your kids have to be allowed to try something and possibly fail at it. This is true in other areas as well, but especially so in art.
I still distinctly remember one particular art teacher I had at a homeschool co-op when I was little. She would come around, look at students' drawings, and then erase something she didn't think was right and re-draw it! I would get frustrated, because I thought it looked good and then all my hard work was replaced. There's a difference between helping students improve their skills and doing their work for them. What would have been better for this teacher to do: come around to look at the drawings, then suggest ways to improve my drawing myself. A student can't truly learn something if the work is done by someone else.
I didn't understand perspective, scale, shading, proportions when I first put crayon to paper. But I was allowed and encouraged to draw, doodle, paint, cut, paste, build, sew...and through the process of creating I learned. Not everything I made as a 7-year-old and make as a 24-year-old are masterpieces. I try new ideas and they don't always work. And that's okay. I take what I learned and I create again.
