VISUAL ARTS

BOOK ON ART.
All art lessons consist of games, fairy tales,
creative tasks, plays and drawings.

Target group: children 4 to 10 years old, parents, teachers, psychologists

THE DESCRIPTION:
Do you wish to teach children drawing? The ability to draw is not only the knowledge of a few techniques. First of all it is the perceptual ability to recognise unique colours and forms in the surrounding world. All children are potentially artists. Games, fairy tales, dialogues and creative tasks help to develop feelings and imagination, which can be translated into artistic self-expression.

Use this book's exercises for expanding the perceptual ability and for improving powers of visualization in lessons with both young and intermediate agedchildren,and read together with them fairy tales about colours, pictures and artists.  And even if many of you still won't manage  to draw very professionally, what is much more important is that such lessons will stimulate the stirrings of creativity both in children and in their tutors – and this by itself is no mean achievement!

All art lessons consist of games, fairy tales, creative tasks, plays and drawings.

FUNCTIONAL PURPOSE:
Development of willpower, development of rational thought and an enlarged vocabulary and the ability to use it together with an expansion of ideas about many subjects and phenomena in the surrounding world; an improvement of the memory; development of the creative and artistic abilities, and of imagination and the dramatic sense; the establishment of standards of colour, sizes and forms; development of motor coordination; and not least, an acquaintance with treasures of world culture.

As children become acquainted with the work of artists, the most important thing is to ignite within them a spark of wonder at the unique world of these special people, to help them become participants in the magic of discovering life. We have selected the most vivid aspects of artists' work and stories of the innermost aspects of their lives. Words from the artists' own diaries and letters help to establish a vital link between them and the child's soul, questions and exercises help the child to see the world through artists' eyes and teach him or her to create.

GETTING TO KNOW ARTISTS

• The artist as a person
• The artist as a creator
• The artist's inner world
• The role of art in society

SHARING IN CREATIVE WORK

• Discovering the mysteries of creating
• Learning to sense the artist's character through his work
• Writing stories and poems about artists and colors
• The magical images of nature

ENTERING THE WORLD OF THE PICTURE

• A tour through the picture
• The mood of the picture
• Bouquets of love, joy and goodness
• Mixed approach: paints, music and words

All questions and exercises are intended to help children learn, through discovering the mysteries of the visual arts, to express their innermost beings through their own creative work. The page with sample children's drawings contains work from Molodik Children's Centre in Vitebsk (teacher Lilia Senko) and School No. 35 in Izhevsk (teacher Svetlana Melnik).

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