Arco Iris - Las Talitas, Tucumán

Creation of a mural work

"Painting on a canvas, a new material for the children, turned out to be very stimulating. They agreed quickly to this proposal. In general, the children are happy to work with new materials (they like to discover them, to handle them). First, they painted individually on pieces of canvas given to each of them.

When the mural work started, the children were very enthusiastic, they prepared the colors on the palette and took out the bigger paintbrushes, because they had decided to paint the background first, while using little sponges to mix and soften the colors. In this first phase; they showed a lot of dynamism and pleasure.

Once the background was dry, they started drawing " My Earth seen from the sky " : houses, buildings, trees, people, getting their inspiration from the individual works previously done as  "drafts ".
All the children contributed to the composition of the canvas, to which they added a huge sun right in the middle. Each child was particularly committed to one part of this collective work, but collaborated several times in other parts of the work. The oldest children then unified a few aspects of the work, emphasising with dark pastels the contours of the drawings. What is more, they decorated the bottom edge of the canvas with different shades of green (grass, plants, etc). Finally, they added small flowers.

The children themselves were surprised by their own creation. Here are a few of their reactions: "it is nice", "it was a lot of fun", "we have to put the painting in the sun so that it dries quickly and doesn't get damaged", "let's go show it to Norita" (the head of the Institution), "we have to take a picture of it", "we will do another one so that it stays at the Center" (the first was sent to France to be exhibited). And that is what happened.

During the next workshop, they did another big collective work. And this time, the painting will be part of the annual exhibition that will take place in November in Tucuman. The second painting was finished faster than the first one. This obviously shows the ability of the children to learn, their creativity and the organisation they put into place for the second painting, taking advantage of their first experience".

Ana María Ortiz de Ferullo, Co-ordinator of Arco Iris.

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Acrylic on fabric,  300 x 73 cm

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