How Drawing Encourages Artistic Risk-Taking
Purple grass. A sky colored orange just because. A dog drawn with six legs on purpose. These small, deliberate departures from "how things really look" are artistic risk-taking in miniature, and they matter more than they seem.
What Artistic Risk-Taking Looks Like
Artistic risk-taking means trying something uncertain — an unusual color combination, an unfamiliar subject, a different way of drawing a familiar thing — without knowing ahead of time whether it will look "good." For a child, that risk is small in real-world terms, but it can feel large in the moment, especially for a child who's used to coloring things the way they're "supposed" to look.
How Drawing Grows Artistic Risk-Taking
Casual, ungraded drawing at home is about as low-stakes as risk gets, which makes it an ideal place to practice trying the unusual. When an experiment doesn't turn out as hoped and nothing bad follows — no correction, no redo demanded — a child learns that uncertainty is survivable. That lesson, repeated enough times through small drawing choices, builds a broader comfort with trying things that might not work, a skill that extends well past the page.
Simple Activity to Try
Try a "wrong color challenge" together: color a familiar scene using colors that don't match reality at all — purple grass, an orange sky, a blue banana. Talk about how it feels different from coloring things "correctly," and let the results stay exactly as unusual as they come out.
Tips for Parents and Teachers
- Model risk-taking yourself by making an unusual choice in your own drawing.
- Resist "rescuing" an experiment that isn't working out as planned.
- Name the unusual choice specifically when you notice it — "I love that you made the sky green."
- Offer risk-taking prompts as optional, never as a requirement.
Frequently Asked Questions
What if my child refuses to try anything different from usual?
Start small — one unusual color in an otherwise familiar drawing — rather than asking for a completely different approach all at once.
Is artistic risk-taking connected to risk-taking in other areas of life?
It can help build general comfort with uncertainty and trying new things, though it's just one small piece of a much bigger picture.
How should I respond when an experiment doesn't look good?
Avoid rushing to fix or judge it. A simple, neutral response like "that's interesting, tell me about it" keeps the experiment feeling safe rather than like a failure.
Conclusion
An orange sky or a six-legged dog is a small, safe rehearsal for trying the unexpected. Let those experiments happen without correction. See also how drawing encourages creative confidence and how drawing encourages making mistakes in art, or explore coloring pages for a place to experiment.