"Creativity is contagious, pass it on”

As part of Daddy school, a lot of our time is taken up by creative activities. It's so important to let your little ones explore their creative side, especially in the early years. Opeie loves drawing, if he sees pen and paper lying around then he'll start doodling and if there's one thing I'll take from studying art at university is that mark making, in all its amazing forms is an important start to any creative endeavour. The boys have access to a huge range of artistic media and although I'm partial to pencil, paper and hands-on craft, it's really important to be open minded to art via technology. I'm useless when it comes to using a computer this way and sadly always turn to Mrs M when it comes to creating the things I need. 

Technology plays s huge part in our day to day lives now and the last thing I want is the boys to fall behind just because it is out of my comfort zone. Seth is starting to show interest in coding and photoshop and Opeie is desperate to get involved. I'm a firm believer in gaming in education and I use lots of different games for various aspects of his learning, the obvious being reading, writing and mathematics, but also for learning strategy. There are great gaming titles out there that cover learning technology. Pokemon typing adventure has been one of my favourite for teaching Opeie keyboard skills early on and the art academy range has been great for what is almost a very basic style of Photoshop, learning to use various icons to create a masterpiece.

We reviewed Pokémon Art Academy last year and being huge Pokemon fans, the game gave Opeie a great introduction in how to create his favourite characters using shapes and techniques. Whatever we draw together I try and break down what he is looking at into a selection of simple shapes to work from. The art academy games back up my approach to teaching but digitally.

With the release of Disney Art Academy, Opeie's inner digital artist has yet again been awakened and he has been in his element recreating has favourite Disney characters. It's frustrating when you are young and struggle to draw the characters that you love. For me it was Basil the great mouse detective, I'd spend days trying to draw my favourite characters from the movie and it's where my love of drawing stemmed from. Disney art academy breaks these well-loved characters down to their most simple form making them accessible to anyone that wants to know how to draw them and this is what makes the game so special. By Taking the budding artist through each step of creating a character, their form, colour scheme and expressions, the game is building creative confidence. It's a great way of teaching that in life if you want to achieve anything you first need the confidence to attempt it.

With over 80 character drawings to attempt and a huge amount of techniques to learn along the way this game is as educational as it is playful, the perfect game for the younger generation of future artists.