Team Painting

Sharing the Painting Workshop we had yesterday at Linda's School, with our CAE Starter students. Thank you :)

“Painting is letting your emotions flow into colours and shapes”

When one looks at a street in Tomar, each person has their own image of it. Whatever is in each mind depends entirely on one’s individual perspective. In other words, when one observes reality the deatils that spring forth differ from individual to individual. This is due to the difference in moral values, attractiveness and emotional memories each one has. Thus, it becomes possible to transfer this same particular appraisal of reality onto a canvas, through the art of painting.

The interesting thing is when one is questioning one’s appraisal of reality it changes each moment, which leads to a creative process in each brush stroke – unique to the moment of its conception. Painting is communicating with oneself – there is a difference between what one conceives in one’s mind and what then appears on the canvas. Then again, what the viewer will appraise when the painting is finished, can be a totally different thing than what the painter had in mind.

Team painting

Each person has their own conceptual background. When belonging to a group, after a while, a new particular background is created which belongs to the group itself. This creates a new breeding ground for joint ideas and concepts.

Drawing on people’s emotions is a fantastic way to lead them to learn, for when one feels one expands. The passion behind any kind of learning or any other creative endeavour is what leads to success – be it whatever the reader may deem it to be.

The aim of this activity is for the group to feel that we belong to it and are somehow related in the way we are growing and expanding as individuals and, of course, as a group. This makes creation much richer than any individual could achieve alone.

I would like to ask you to take a few moments and recall the moments that have stayed with you since the beginning of this school year. What touched you? What stayed in your emotional memory? How do you feel now about belonging to this group? What particular emotions come up?

Do not discard any image as irrelevant. What crazy things are going through your mind now? This is how the artist starts conception of a masterpiece J

Feel free to create. It is much like creating word webs to brainstorm ideas, but now you are revolutionising your feelings – diving into them and making sense of that.

Now draw... and then connect your craziness to everyone else’s so that the painting whole, not a sum of parts – you need to feel into each other’s craziness too! “The whole is much more than the sum of its parts”.

Join the dots and enjoy!