One of my favorite things about working with children is how quickly they move beyond the initial idea.
Ask a child to create a character and, before long, the conversation has moved far beyond appearances. The character has a favorite food, a place they call home, a hidden talent, and a best friend they never go anywhere without. Ask them to invent a pet and suddenly there are questions about where it sleeps, what it eats, and how it communicates.
The original idea is rarely where things end.
Over time, I've come to appreciate that children don't simply create things. They create worlds around them. A color becomes a feeling. A shape becomes a place. A character becomes part of a larger story.
What fascinates me most is how naturally this happens.
Children instinctively think in relationships, possibilities, and narratives. What does this creature dream about? Who does it miss when it travels? Why does it only come out when it rains?
These details may seem small, but they are often where the most interesting ideas begin. They require children to imagine perspectives beyond their own and to follow an idea far enough to discover where it wants to go.
This is something I see often through my workshops, whether we're exploring color and shape (Join the Express Through Color and Shape workshop), imagining dream pets (Sign up for the Create Your Dream Pet workshop), or designing original characters (Book the Design Your Own Character workshop). The most memorable moments are rarely the finished pieces themselves, but the thinking that surrounds them and the worlds that emerge along the way.
Perhaps this is why working with children feels so familiar to me. In my own practice, storytelling has never been about isolated images or ideas, but about the context, relationships, and atmosphere that give them meaning. The most compelling stories are built through details, perspective, and the connections between things. Working with children has reminded me that they often approach creativity in much the same way.
Given the space to explore, they naturally begin connecting ideas, building context, and asking what comes next. A character needs a history. A place needs inhabitants. A color begins to carry emotion and meaning.
That instinct has shaped the way I approach creativity. Rather than focusing solely on the finished piece, I'm often more interested in the process that leads there and the worlds that emerge along the way.
Sometimes all it takes is a single idea and the space to follow it a little further.
To explore more upcoming creative sessions and read about my approach to mentoring young artists, visit my full profile here.
