Both my husband and I, are artists and designers. We own a software development firm in India by the name of Intelligaia Technologies (www.intelligaia.com). Our son, who is now 5, started drawing when he was 2. It’s been almost 2-3 years, that we were toying with the idea of creating an online studio for all children, where they can share their masterpieces. I created a group or two on Flickr, ning and even Facebook…eventually, came up with this concept that we call the little sketchers!

Little Sketchers started as a need to document and share the art of our son and it seemed as if all our friends and family needed it as well And also to encourage parents to understand the importance of art in their child’s mental and creative development. I am also doing a lot of research on the value of art education, mainly the Project zero started by Howard Gardner and his colleagues. It is amazing to know how art can impact the human mind!

Do visit his studio

http://littlesketchers.com/members/Cheena.Kaul/studio

http://littlesketchers.com/members/rajivkaul/studio

We’ve had a very good response, since our launch on 6th June (150+ members), and we are happy to see children getting excited about all this. Art, I believe is not only therapeutic but also a great way to help children retain more in terms of their education. Art reveals a lot about what is going on in that tiny mind!

Currently, we are working on some cool features. Planning on launching a coloring canvas very soon. This will be a game that will encourage children to draw and share and learn while coloring online. Should be online this month! Our Shop, which will mainly have products created by us, will be utilizing WP ecommerce!

We have not come across any similar website so far, that allows users to create a studio and sketchbooks. Another feature that we are working on is to enable the parents to also upload the picture of the child. Many features of Buddypress, like the forum will also be incorporated very soonl To start with the idea was to only provide a studio to the parents and children. We are bringing forth some great art projects and activities as well. Currently these are derived from what we do with our son. Eventually we hope to get more parents and professionals to also contribute.

I guess we chose WordPress and Buddypress as nothing else would have done justice to the idea. It enabled us to churn out the website in a few months time.
We have customized the code too according to our need.