Creative ways to introduce the next generation to digital art!

Holidays are often the rare moments when we finally slow down, gather with family, and enjoy time offline. For collectors with children or the children within each collector, it is also the perfect opportunity to get into creative arts and craft activities with a hot cocoa next to the fireplace.

Many of the activities we recommend below were first developed during the very first NFT Kid Zone we hosted at the Nonfungible Conference (NFC) in Lisbon in June 2023, where we built a dedicated space for young creatives to play, explore, and learn about digital art.

The response was overwhelming: kids jumped into pixel art, colored and remixed artworks by crypto artists, and attended artist-led printing workshops. Today, we are sharing these ideas and some new ones with you so you can bring the same spirit home for the holidays.

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PIXEL ART

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Pixel art is one of the easiest ways for kids to create digital artworks from scratch. It is visual, intuitive, and instantly rewarding. You can use a tool that allows your kid to create a pixel artwork with a simple palette and tools, name the work, AND MINT IT.

👉 Try Pixelchain: https://pixelchain.art/editor

Holiday activity ideas:

• Create pixel portraits of family members.
  
  
• Make a series of winter icons: snowflakes, trees, animals, gifts.
  
  
• Invent a character and write a short story around it.
  
  
• Create a “family pixel gallery” and display it on your TV or print them.
  
  

Some background on pixelchain.art: Founded in 2020, Pixelchain is one of the earliest pixel-art creation tools. What makes Pixelchain especially meaningful for digital art history is that many pioneering crypto artists experimented with it at the very beginning of their careers. XCOPY, Hackatao, Coldie, Alotta Money, and other early trailblazers minted pixel pieces on Pixelchain, turning this playful tool into a foundational part of the Web3 art story. However, the artist name does not appear on the artworks, predating some of the art-friendly NFT settings.

See the collection on Opensea >

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CRYPTO ART COLORING SHEETS

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During the Nonfungible Conference, we invited crypto artists to submit black-and-white line drawings inspired by their artworks. Kids colored them, remixed them, and created completely new pieces. Each coloring sheet had a QR code referencing the original artwork.

Some are inspired by the now-closed platform, async.art, encouraging kids to compose scenes with elements. You can do the same at home using free coloring sheets we originally designed for the event:

👉 Download crypto-art coloring sheets

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Holiday activity ideas:

• Print several sheets and organize a family coloring session.
  
  
• Encourage kids to add their own details (patterns, speech bubbles, backgrounds).
  
  
• Scan the final drawings and display them digitally or share them with us.
  
  
• Scan the QR codes with your kids so they can learn who the artist is and compare their coloring choices with the ones by the artist.

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CREATIVE CODING

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You don’t need to be a coder yourself to introduce your kids to creative coding. What matters is showing them how digital art can be generated, transformed, or animated through simple simple rule sets.

Try these easy holiday coding activities / platforms:

• Explore the free khan academy courses for simple sessions of creative coding. The UI is simple and you can pick the language you learn.
• Play Rabbids Coding on Mobile (iPhone | Android)
• For bigger kids, you can try the Coding Train - start with this course (I love the guy! He is fun to watch even for the adults) - this is the full website if you get addicted
• You can try Scratch as well (many schools use the software, but I personally don’t like it very much as it does not teach much)
• For adults, the Processing foundation has a great library of tutorials here

These activities give kids a first sense of how creative coding works, a very useful skill!

If you only believe in vibe coding for the next generation, you can start with this guide.

For reference: “Vibe coding” is a term coined by OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy, refers to the process of using large language models (LLMs) to produce code through text prompts, just like the prompts you’d type into ChatGPT. Karpathy describes it as “Giving into the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that code even exists.”

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MAKE YOUR OWN STICKERS

We are all obsessed with stickers (don't lie, you are as well).

Get pens and markers and sticker paper, and go to town on designing your own stickers. Make sure to get pens and markers that work with the type of sticker paper you get.

Creative Ideas:

• Print pixel art creations on sticker paper.
  
  
• Design your own family logo and distribute stickers at the family holiday party
  
  
• Make stickers that people can put on their glass to distinguish their own during the family dinners and holiday parties

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And if you don't yet have your sticker book, what are you waiting for? Without it, are you even a real sticker collector?

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ART WORKSHOPS

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At NFC, artists led printmaking sessions, virtual clay workshops, and storytelling activities. You can bring this same energy to your home. Make sure everybody participates.

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Try these activities at home:

• Printmaking: Cut shapes into a half potato to make prints (Youtube tutorial) or use sponges and various vegetables to compare the various print results.
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• Clay: Make a podmork (see sculptures below by Hackatao) using air dry clay and paint.
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• Storytelling: Cryptoartist LapinMignon created an entire univesere, The Mignonverse, with daily stories to dream and get your head in the stars. Her Youtube account has many magical videos for story time.
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• For older kids and grown ups, make a cross-stitched version of a cryptopunk you like or own with the amazing Generative Goods Lab Tool

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DISPLAY ART TOGETHER

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Show your kids your Digital Art Collection / Library and select together works to show as the Family Holiday Exhibition. Let each child or household member curate a mini-show of their choosing. Ask them to pick a theme and present it to the whole family.

If you have a screen, display their curations. This will help them feel more involved and connected to your passion.

Ask them:

• Why did you choose these pieces?
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• How would you arrange the artworks?
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• What title would you give the exhibition?

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Why These Activities Matter

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Collecting art is not an abstract concept for kids, especially when their parents do it. And soon enough, they’ll be the guardian of the collection. So interest them early, tell them about the artists, the stories, the concepts. It will give them a sense of ownership, a connection to your world and the confidence to explore! But most importantly, it will be a fun family time and a joyful memory tied to art.

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Interested in hosting your own Digital Art Kid Zone for a conference, an art fair or at a school, we’d be happy to support you.

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