Come December and we geared up to take small baby steps towards the ‘Clean India, Green India’ initiative. And if not art, what other way could we choose to do this? To add aesthetic value to our villages, rural children were taught to draw Warli paintings on the walls of a house. Warli painting is a traditional folk art of Maharashtra. It is remarkable in its intensely social nature. The beauty of this folk art lies in its sobriety coupled with ebullience of the themes depicted. After cleaning the walls, the students painted them in white against an austere brown background of mud.
Simple to learn, the children mastered it effortlessly by making use of central motifs such as triangles and circles taught to them by the Art teacher, Mr. Niranjan.
Besides improving their fine motor skills and giving a creative vent to their expressions, the activity taught the children that on one hand where cleanliness is abstract, beautification is more concrete. One without the other is meaningless. Children loved learning this skill that allowed visual manifestation of their abstract ideas.
Date: 9th Dec to 10th Dec 2016
Venue: Janardhan’s house wall, Katarkhadak Village.
Teacher/Trainer: Niranjan Sir
Coordinators: Amol
Participants: Katarkhadak village children.
Material used: Brown paint, white paint and brushes.
Gratitude to: Pujya Guruji, Mano ji and whole Rural development team!
