The idea of a painting atelier is to leave children free to create their own pictures and images in a place that is both free and protected where young painters can create freely.
Expressing no judgment on their art work, the assistant and tutor helps the children with their painting process, which is unique and unrepeatable for each of them. Her function, on which her relationship with the children is based, is to create a painting space, an environment that is not only physical but also symbolic and of the emotions. The pictures created there are protected in a warm and loving embrace with the awareness that the pictures are what they are, perfect as they are, giving back thought and emotion to the children.
Without being affected by aesthetic criteria and judgement from outside, the children can follow a path that shows them what they need to produce art work each in their own way and in their own time, as they wish. They learn how to use each colour, trying out the different consistencies and seeing the different shades of colour that they produce. How do you mix colours? How do you match them? How do you use the various tools, mainly brushes, to get different effects? Which shapes go with which colours? What relationships are there between shapes and colours? Discovering the answers to these questions, the children can experiment and build up their own individual relationship with the world of colour and shape, the world of art, while continuing to follow their own desires, imagination and ideas.
That is why the result of this creative adventure is very personal, special and above all unique: the picture produced tells a small part of the story of the child who painted it. Perhaps the child will want to give it a title or maybe tell us about it. Or maybe not. Nothing may be added to the picture: it will just be a picture, perfect in its completeness.
The sense of “being at one with themselves” that the children experience during the painting and creative process and which is reflected in the pictures produced becomes an ever more permanent and accessible part of the children’s development.
The presence of the group means that the picture is produced in a small social environment: the group, facilitated by the presence of the facilitator, encourages the work of each member in an atmosphere of mutual acceptance and tolerance. Inside the group the pictures are not commented on but are accepted, welcomed. It is this group of children that accompanies each of them in their creative journey, in a moment of individual yet shared experience. Together and individually: the children can learn to accept each other the way they are, without judging either themselves or others on the basis of rigid stereotypes, thus helping to develop the ability to self assess in a calm and personal way and attain the joy of an enquiring mind.
Objectives:

• To stimulate the ability to concentrate and listen to others;
• To strengthen the ability to engage in an independent plan of action and to obtain results without being subjected to any pressure to perform;
• To hone the powers of perception and the aesthetic sense;
• To develop the ability to socialise and entertain social relations;
• To increase the emotional intelligence.