Whimsy is the playful side of creativity: unexpected, delightful, and a little surprising. It’s the googly eyes on your outlet, the playful names for things in your art room, or the day you enter wearing a beret or a Dali mustache. Playful art moments invite spontaneity and experimentation, and emphasize process over product. Often, whimsical play helps artists reconnect with their childlike sense of inhibition and reenter the pure joy of creating.
Explore how you can encourage a sense of whimsy and playfulness in your art room to connect to the heart of creativity.
Research confirms that breaking routine isn’t a distraction; it’s a cognitive “reset.” Adding a little humor to the mundane can boost creativity and strengthen connections. It prompts students to let their guards down so they feel more comfortable taking risks. According to Harvard’s Project Zero and the LEGO Foundation, playful experiences are meaningful, actively engaging, iterative, and socially interactive.
This doesn’t mean throw all skill drills and systems in the trash! Rick Rubin reminds us in The Creative Act: A Way of Being that “We can be disciplined in our craft and light in our spirit.” A good balance of both helps students feel free to experiment and to reconnect with joyful creation. It keeps art class fun!
Whimsical Learning
Incorporate short, playful, and unexpected activities to break up larger units or longer class periods. The sillier, the better! This will gently challenge students to let loose and let go, resulting in increased experimentation and creativity. It may also surprise you how ready students will be to hunker down and focus on their projects with a little bit of whimsy.
Try these quick ideas:
- Push a pebble around a sheet of paper with a drawing utensil to connect students to meditative drawing.
- Create quick portraits of each other as cats.
- Paint with your longest brushes (or tape brushes to dowels) to experience “long-distance” painting.
- Play Telephone Pictionary.
- Doodle!
- Draw sketches of idioms such as “It’s raining cats and dogs” or “I lost my head!”
- Have students wear Dali mustaches while making a Surrealist artwork to get into character.
- Lead a one-day Dadaist experiment with absurdist collages made from free magazines.
- Build a cardboard skyscraper in one class period using clean food boxes.
- Engage in Inktober or quirky monthly themes like Mermay!
- Trace each other on large butcher paper and add alien or animal features.
- Organize drawing challenges in brackets.
- Try unconventional (and liberating!) markmaking.
Whimsical Wayfinders
Art teachers are known for their distinctive classroom decor. Our rooms often reflect our personalities and curriculum. From classy to kitsch, our spaces can include wayfinders or visual anchors to help students navigate the art room. For example, the next time a student asks, “Where is the pencil sharpener?” direct them to your wayfinder instead. It’s so much easier and fun to say, “It’s by the giant green frog,” instead of giving a long, boring description.
Plan the visual elements in your classroom with care. An overstimulating environment may hide many essential supplies and contribute to a chaotic atmosphere. Empty spaces like clear countertops can also create space in students’ minds to think distraction-free. Don’t worry—you can still include small trinkets, gallery walls, and clusters of plants; just display the things you love in intentional groupings instead of covering every horizontal and vertical surface. When your wayfinders are bright and durable in a decluttered space, they stand out and are easy to spot.
Whimsical art decor also helps students expect the unexpected in the art room. These little surprises spark curiosity and great questions, like, “Why is that flattened elephant stuck to the wall?” And honestly, that’s exactly the kind of wonder you want in an art room!
Whimsical Brain Breaks
We all love a good brain break when tensions run high, and everyone needs to catch a breather. They’re also great fillers when you wrap up class a few minutes early, you’re waiting for someone to return to class, or you just have a few minutes between skill drills. Fill the time with a little whimsy to infuse your classroom with new energy!
Give everyone a short dose of fun with these ideas:
- Search your room for artworks using prompts such as “Find the woman sitting at a counter.”
- Play “ROYGBIV” by the band They Might Be Giants.
- Show the stop-motion color mixing video by the band OK Go.
- Give a visual word puzzle to solve.
Whimsy doesn’t have to be something extra you add in. When you make it an intentional part of your curriculum and classroom from the start, you encourage creativity and risk-taking in student artmaking. Weave in thoughtful moments of play, surprise, and delight to make the learning (and your studio space!) full of joy. As an added bonus, when you celebrate whimsical moments, you get a burst of fresh energy in your teaching, too!
Where can you add a touch of whimsy to your classroom decor?
Share a way you encourage students to loosen up and play in your art room.
To chat about art room whimsy with other art teachers, join us in The Art of Ed Community!
Magazine articles and podcasts are opinions of professional education contributors and do not necessarily represent the position of the Art of Education University (AOEU) or its academic offerings. Contributors use terms in the way they are most often talked about in the scope of their educational experiences.
