ACTIVITY SHEETS

Why the Arts, Culture and Creativity?

“...it is through engagement with culture in its widest sense that people are enabled and communities strengthened to succeed in the 21st century, Scotland needs to foster the creativity and ingenuity of all its people...” National Cultural Strategy, 2000

Why use Paintings?

Paintings have a remarkable capacity to motivate. They develop the ‘need to know’ which will first spark children’s interest, then their curiosity or creativity, and then stimulate their research. Paintings provide a concrete experience that aids or illuminates abstract thought. Paintings also provide creative and emotional stimulus as our response to paintings is affected by who we are as individuals - Our environment, the people we have come into contact with and the places we have been will have an affect on how we view everything. Paintings can also provide a source for imaginative writing and drama. They provide examples of how ideas and feelings can be expressed in ways other than through words. Paintings can raise issues of age, gender, experiences, environment, religion, race, values, fears, morals. Teachers will be able to use the collection to set activities at which most children will succeed and remove a barrier to learning.

Children will have the opportunity to discuss and interact with artworks through an educational resource that places their own creative work at the heart of the activities listed and essentially applying knowledge to their own work.