Sharing Children’s Artwork Online
It’s that time of the month again. Unfortunately I ‘missed’ August’s mini-masterpieces which should have happened while I was without a computer. Still, hopefully this should at least mean that there is all the more artwork for everyone to share!
There’s no shortage of places to share children’s artwork online these days. As well as a proliferation of groups on Flickr showcasing children’s art, (including Artful Kids of course) there are plenty of other photo-sharing sites which allow you to create and share your own galleries of children’s artwork, organised in whatever way you wish, whether it be by age, by subject or by media used. There’s also a growing number of sites being set up specifically intended to showcase children’s art and which I explore every now and again. Many of them are relatively small, compact communities of regular users, and some are quite new, but there are a few out there which are well established, and which offer a little more than simply being able to upload your child’s artwork.
Perhaps the largest of these is Artsonia - a US based site which sells itself as the world’s largest kid’s art museum. This site has special exhibitions and contests, and you can also browse the site by age, and media. It also has a library of free resources and lesson plans for teachers.
But my favourite so far, perhaps because it’s more directly aimed at children themselves, is Tate Kids. This is a really interactive site which allows children to create art online, upload their artwork, and share both in their own gallery. They can also comment on the artwork of others. There is the chance to chosen as Gallery of the Month, and to have your artwork featured as one of the most popular images by other users. For me this is a dynamic and exciting site that takes sharing children’s artwork online to a new level, along of course with the prestige attached to having it hosted by a world famous gallery of contemporary art.
Another site which is a little different, in that it actually offers the chance for children to earn some money from their artwork, is Look and Learn Art. Look and Learn is a London-based picture library specialising in educational images. Since 2006 they have run monthly online children’s art competitions with the explicit objective of creating the world’s best gallery of children’s art. All entries appear in their online gallery, and children and their sponsors (teachers or parents) get their own personal online galleries. Children entering the competitions receive personalised participation certificates in the form of printable PDFs, while the nine winners each month receive elaborate printed certificates bearing the Look and Learn company seal, as well as cash prizes ranging from £20 to £35. Entry to the competitions and gallery is free. They have awarded well over £15,000 in prizes to children in more than 30 countries. In order to increase the benefits of participating in the art competitions, they have also recently started offering children’s art for commercial licensing (e.g. for use in greetings cards), on the basis that half the net income will go to the child and the other half will be added to the art competitions prize fund.
And of course there are linkys such as this one which are a great way not only of sharing kids artwork, but also getting new ideas and inspiration from others.
There are lots of benefits to sharing children’s artwork online. It can be a convenient way of recording and storing safely all that artwork which you don’t know what to do with, and online images will not crease or fade or become dog-eared. It’s good also for children’s self-confidence to see that their work is valued.
I’ve listed below a few of the other children’s artwork sharing sites I’ve come across. However, there are no doubt lots of other sites for sharing children’s artwork which I’ve missed, so if you have any to recommend then do let me (and everyone else) know in the comments.
The Worldwide Kids Art Gallery
My Drawings – The Children’s Drawing and Painting Gallery for Parents, Nurseries and Schools
And on a related topic, if you’re interested in digital art for children you may like to read these earlier posts:
And now onto September’s Mini-Masterpiece Linky…
This month I thought I would share some more of my younger son’s artwork – since he’s much more prolific than his elder brother now. This one is his interpretation of a Fire-Engine. So if your child has created a mini-masterpiece recently that you want to show off to the world, why not add it to the Linky below
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