Aims of the art workshop:
- To help underprivileged children come to terms with emotions in a creative way through art.
- To give the children an opportunity to develop and learn new artistic techniques.
- To help the children be able to identify with other children in a group who are going through similar circumstances. E.g Loss, the effects alcoholism, abuse, abandonment, poverty.
- To expose the children a large range of materials out of which to build their models. This allows them the opportunity to make decisions and choices as well as allowing them to use their imaginations and make unique creations instead of identical copies of my example.
Older children are more conscious of realism and final product when it comes to art where as younger children draw more symbolically. (You can read more about this developmental theory by Susan K Donely here) So running a course for children of different ages was one of my challenges. My observation was that this difference caused quite a bit of anxiety within the group when I got them to draw. In order to overcome this I included more 3 dimensional modeling activities which equalized the children's abilities, I also used more fantasy and imagination stressing individuality.
Constraints:
As this was a course for underprivileged children I decided to use as many recyclable goods as possible, this helped with the overall cost of the course and it was also a good opportunity to teach the children about being environmentally conscious.
~Morag noffke
