Colouring pages can be a great way to help kids get started in painting. A collection of pages that make up a Landscape of Commitment.
Often I am asked to explain how to be explicit when talking with students about how to develop resiliency through art projects. Here is an example.
I took the original black and white drawing and cut it into five parts and enlarged them to A4 size. Colouring Page
I placed them on the floor and told the kids to take the tree that best represented how they feel about art at the moment. We then took the trees outside and painted them.
It was a good lesson and the kids got the point about commitment being a process not just a noun. Their trees were beautiful and they got to share their feelings about how much work it takes to really get into art and do a job of it.
The kids worked out for themselves that if they tracked where they were up to in the feelings emotionscape - maybe they would be able to empower themselves to keep going until they finally realise their projects.
Some of the parents who were present were quite impressed by the kid's ability to understand and dialogue about commitment. Helping children develop the ability to keep commitments is part of empowering children to become resilient.
The page posted above is called Uninformed Optimism and it is about the honey moon phase at the beginning of any commitment. The kids all seemed to want to paint this one with lots of colour. Once it was dry they rescued the outlines with oil pastels. Next they really went to town with the glitter and sequins!
Experience more of this dialogue as I post more colouring pages in Blogs to come. If you subscribe to the RSS feed you will be alerted when the next one is posted.
