Saturday 6 June 2015

SUMMER ART CARNIVAL - NGMA, New Delhi

The Summer Art Workshop for children of various ages held by National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi every year during the Summer holidays of students, is a great effort and initiative to engage young minds with art and its various nuances. NGMA engages professional artists as instructors to conduct the art workshops at its Delhi premises.
The workshop is a wonderful creative journey for all the participants including the instructors. As for myself, I have learned more from the kids than anybody else. Their simplicity of thought, amazes me till now.

Soumen Bhowmick conducting the Summer Art Carnival, 2015 at NGMA.
Sharing my knowledge of drawing, painting, ideating, collage making, best out of waste, cartooning and illustration with kids is always a pleasurable experience. The innocent queries on art by these young geniuses, keeps my mind young forever and agile at the same time.I am conducting the Summer Art Workshops with NGMA since 2009. Over the years the journey has been a self exploration for me as well.

Every day is a new challenge. With hundreds of innocent and equally tough questions put across by these young participants, keep one’s mind absolutely agile. All the paintings, drawings, collages and creations out of waste were done on the spot for ten continuous days. It was a great learning process for me also. More than the kids I learned a lot from them. Their innocent handling of colours and forms amazed me. The spontaneity of young minds is best used while creating art. When the kids participate in groups, their competitive attitude and sharing of ideas increases manifolds. Group activities like creating objects of art out of waste material; instill a feeling of openness and confidence in the child.

The group of children learns to use various materials and methods of art, like; watercoloracrylicsoft pasteloil pastelcharcoalpen and inkrelief workuses of typographycollage makingimportance of colourvarious formstexturesbasic printmakingbasic mask makingcartooningcreating art book, sketchingobject drawing and creating objects of art out of waste material. I try my best to inculcate the concept of experimentation and art with complete freedom.







One has to initiate the young guns into the known and the unknown spheres of the art within a short span of 10 days only. Its an absolute challenge. To keep these kids engaged for 2 hours daily is a masterly job. I try not to teach, but to guide them only. Need not be an over powering entity to make each one of the participants a creative genius. Just let them relax and enjoy art at their own pace. But do guide them whenever you feel its needed.












Taking a group photograph of the participants is always a big challenge. Firstly they are always trying to do some mischief in front of the camera and their bindaas moments are very difficult to synchronize. But finally I achieved to capture the entire group of young talents. Some times the students themselves ask for the group photograph. They want the spirit of the team to be captured forever.




Some of the works done on paper by students from various years of the art workshop. Not in sequence of years, but never the less it shows the creativity of the participants.












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