Painting with Children [antikvár]

Children and colour We see the sky in ever changing colour: in shining blue, almost black in the night, with grey and white clouds, merging into a mysterious violet, flaming up in red, shining in yellow and orange, and in a delicate green within the rainbow. When we gaze around us everything comes in colour: the white snow, the grey stone, the blue-green sea, red apples, green meadows, yellow-gold cornfields, violets, and brown cows. From childhood we are immersed in the ever-changing colours of our surroundings. These colours affect our attitude to life and play into our moods, and are again expressed in the colour of our clothes. We delight in wearing our chosen colours. Children love colours. Babies reach out for coloured objects which attract them. Soon they remember them and remember too the colour sensation that belongs to each colour. Children unite with the colours that flow towards them from their surroundings, even to the extent of feeling inwardly coloured. Children's feelings too are affected strongly by colours. One colour may produce In the child a feeling of well-being, while another a feeling of discomfort. Because children are so much more receptive than grown-ups their experience of colour is all the more intense. In his earliest years the child's sense perceptions are still fresh. Everything he perceives is imprinted right into his body. Thus it cannot be good for a baby to be exposed too soon to harsh daylight, or to have to look into the dead light of an electric lamp. The little baby first perceives light and colour as differentiated shades of brightness. Only when light and colour work upon the eye does it become a perfected organ of sight. In his book, The Education of the Child, Rudolf Steiner illustrates the effect of colour on the child: A 'nervous,' that is to say excitable child, should be treated differently as regards environment from one who is quiet and lethargic. Everything comes into consideration, from the colour of the room and the various objects that are generally around the child, to the colour of the clothes in which he is dressed An excitable child should be surrounded by and dressed in red and reddish-yellow