ART lessons for CHILDREN
Extra curricular activity at the Euopean School Bergen (ESB)
MARIA COSTANTINI
Background
My love for art has being growing since I was very young, and it has increased while I was studying law. During university I attended private courses and started painting constantly. In the meantime I focused my legal studies on young children issues. I took a PHD in juvenile criminal proceeding and worked as a juvenile criminal lawyer. In those years I went to Nairobi as a voluntary to help children in the slums.
As soon as my kids arrived I decided to give up with the treatment of pathological situations and I approached a new way to take care of children through my passion, which is art. I attended two years of the Liceo Artistico in Lucca (art secondary school). At that time I also worked in a multicultural project (unfreeze-lab.blogspot.com), in which many competences where involved -art, photograph, creative writing, recycling, art and craft activities-
In September 2012 we moved to The Nederland. The first year I stayed home with my children, and it was a great period also to enjoy and experiment art with them.
I started a blog ( io-maria-paint.blogspt.com ) to share my interest and passion for oil painting, drawing and mix media.
In July I had my first exhibition at The new label project, in Amsterdam, where I still keep some of my works.
This September, as my children started the European school, I started to attend the Wackers Academie in Amsterdam.
Recently I joined the ‘’cultural and creative corner’’ at the Euromarkt, great experience!
Guide lines
In my art course I'd like to let children perceive the reality around them through the observation. It should be the occasion to experiment the beauty of colours and shapes both outside and inside their young persons. I think art can be a good way to learn respect for what surrounds us, but also to learn the distance between reality and representation. Our children already know how to see images just touching a screen. This is fine but I think they can be invited to a pure observation, touching and then trying to re-produce what there is outside a screen, even by memory. They can start feeling the importance of a line, and see what happens when we cross the borders. They can appreciate light learning the power of its shadows.
I'd love them to understand what they like, so I would invite each child to give space to his favorite colours, and to focus on his preferred subjects.
I would also give importance to what they can do on their own, for example showing them how to make their own canvas to paint on.
Once my son asked me to prepare his own canvas, as I do. He was so proud of his job: wood and cotton, a good work.
He painted it with a sense of respect, trying to make his best.
Thea could also experiment how to make colours from nature, and create their own mixed media.
Finally, it would be important to engage them showing how some adult famous painters (e.g. Klee, Kandinsky, Matisse, Mirò) used a naïf way to paint. I think this kind of comparison can encourage them since they would be aware of the ability every children has already: fantasy and pure vision and synthesis capacity. They shouldn't lose it, while they learn to interpret reality.
