Shelley Howells: Masterpieces for the artistically challenged

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Occasionally, inspired by year four school projects, I come over all artistic.

Sadly, my efforts to art-direct assignments on the life-cycle of krill, native animals and the benefits of recycling are not well received.

Apparently, the 8-year-old is supposed to do it himself and doesn't appreciate me hogging the felt-tips and hiding the glue stick. And apparently, I'm terminally artistically challenged. No talent at all. Knowing this doesn't quell the creative urge, however.

Once again, the net comes to the rescue, with artistic endeavour available at the click of a mouse, in private, allowing minimal sneering from more talented family members.

Okay, so many of the following sites are aimed at juniors, but you can always say you're researching your kid's next homework project.

A current favourite is Mr Picassohead, a very elegant site that lets you create your own Picasso-like masterpiece, a la Mr Potatohead.

Click-n-drag ears, mouths, even facial hair. Scale up and down, rotate, colour and, finally, sign with a Pablo flourish.

You can email your effort to friends and enemies, and there's an impressive gallery of others' efforts. Excellent, and you don't need a smock.

The Toymaker lets you take artistic endeavours offline, with a series of beautiful, Victoriana-inspired print-n-glue toys to make, including an adorable mouse that runs with a marble, gift bags, pop-up cards and a miniature theatre. Many of them idiot-proof, though some are complicated.

You can create your own landscape painting with Landscape Adventure, one of a series of simple interactive art games designed for kids on an art education site that's a cunningly disguised ad for Sanford art supplies.

The Museum of Web Art kids' wing has lots of clever interactive web art installations to play with.

I highly recommend the endearing, zany Polychromatic Millipede for hours of distraction when faced with a work deadline.

The Museum of Modern Art site also has online artistic fun for kids of all ages, including a Fantastic Animals generator. Sadly, my efforts owed more to Warner Bros than Rousseau.

Art Interactive lets you create an online sculpture and install it in a museum or sculpture garden to get an idea of how the finished work would look. In my case, reminiscent of the inorganic rubbish collection. But it doesn't take long to load and is a lot of fun all the same.

The Baltimore Museum of Art lets you learn about, and then be Matisse for a while. It's very stylish, witty and informative, and even manages to throw in a couple of French lessons on the way.

As you learn about Matisse and his work, you collect props and patterns to use in your final masterpiece. Or you can brush up on the basics and try your hand at composition online with a site about American wildlife artist Carl Rungius.

The US National Gallery of Art kids' section has an enviable collection of Shockwave online art activities: a lovely no-mess online Collage machine, an interactive portrait maker and drawing board, a pixel-art creator, geometric sculpture, and very satisfying 3D Twirler.

And if you can't be doing with all that hands-on-mouse creativity, the brilliant Renaissance Connection educational site allows you to "get some respect, hire an artist to create a work of art that gets you noticed as a patron of the arts" instead.

New York's Albright-Knox Gallery's web presence gives you a whole art studio to play in. The Jackson Pollock-like splatter art is very satisfying - you can chip away at a block of rock to create a sculpture, and there are silly, engaging games based on works in their collection.

Speaking of silly, end your online art experience with some medieval humour, and create your own, alternative Flash Bayeux-like tapestry to send as an e-card or submit to the site's gallery.

Complete with finely stitched castles, warriors (in fighting form, and beheaded), maidens and weird beasts, it gives you a chance to release your little-known inner medieval cartoonist.

* Email Shelley Howells