Category: ART-IQ

Let us become more aware about colours and about the way in which they act upon us. Next time when you will find yourselves in a restaurant, take a look at the setting. The colours are bright and funny. You believe that the designers have chosen those colours only in order for you to feel happy while you are there? Not only do they want this, but they also know that bright colours like red, orange and yellow stimulate the nervous system and increase the appetite. Do you remember those sunny moments in the summer when you would stay on the beach, just like the doctor has recommended you or maybe your grandmother with her elderly wisdom? Do you know why so much importance is given to sun baths? It is not the tan which counts but the absorption by the organism of the colours coming with the sun rays. Are you familiar with the melancholy feeling that sometimes captures us in autumn and with the fact that the reasons for which we have these feelings must be sought in the lack of solar light and of bright colours? All these ideas are associated with an old principle known as “colour therapy”.

The old Egyptians, the Chinese and the Indians believed in colour therapy. The Egyptians would bathe and consume the “therapeutic” water that had previously been exposed for a long time to the rays of the sun in a recipient made of painted glass. The Chinese would refer to the face colouring in order to set a diagnostic. The Ayurvedic medicine, originally from India, teaches the fact that the chakras (a sort of nervous plexuses located on different levels of the body) act as prisms reflecting and amplifying the colours surrounding us. In our days researchers admit the fact that colours have indeed strong effects on the human psyche and through the psyche on our mood and health.

• Red – Root Chakra
• Orange – Spleen Chakra
• Yellow – Chakra of the Solar Plexus Green – Heart Chakra
• Blue – Throat Chakra
• Indigo – Third Eye Chakra
• Purple – Crown Chakra

Colour therapy is based on the fact that our psychological functions respond to several colours. How does this happen? The pineal glands (attached to the brain) control the daily rhythm of life. When the light gets into our eyes (skin) it passes through neurological pathways towards these pineal glands. Different colours (given by different wavelengths and frequencies) are connected to certain regions of the body and have diverse effects on the physical and psychological functions. The example above showing how yellow, red and orange are being used in fast foods is just one of the possibilities this principle works with.

Experiences which start with colours. We have had our first coloured experience when we were babies and were still in the uterus, where we were surrounded by a protective and comfortable pink. Then we associate the childhood experiences with our very first learning processes by means of colours. As we become more mature we link several feelings, memories and understandings to certain colours and these can become scenarios in our subconscious. Then we can build prejudices linked to the colours that make us happy, sad or have a threatening connotation for us.

There are several ways for the therapeutic use of colours, but we will only mention the ones that are mostly known:

• Using coloured clothing
• Water that has rested in the sun
• Exposure to coloured light
• Mediation with colours
• Colour breathing.

What is communication?

When is needed to defined communication, most speakers think of “to inform”, “to let you know” or “information”. Communication is understood as a process based on four basic components: transmitter, channel, information and the receiver (Fig. 1). Summary of the process consists of transferring or sending information from the receiver to the sender. This basic model should be expanded, however, because the communication never ends with the simple acquisition or reception of information. First there not should be omitted the flowing of information and in revers (feedback) because communication is done only to obtain a response. Second, communication is an intentional process: the transmitter transmits information to receiver through a channel in order to produce certain effects on the receptor. Thirdly, all this “deployment” would not be fully effective unless it would be given such importance to code and decode the message. Fourthly, we must not ignore the possibility of errors in coding or decoding, and interference of disturbing factors. All these elements will diminish the success of communication.

		Coding	Message- Information	Decoding
	Transmitter	──────		─────►	Receiver
		◄───────────────────────
	Feedback

The message is the basic unit of communication, actually located at the intersection of communication and representation of reality. It may consist of written or spoken words, visual images, music, noise, signs, symbols, colors, gestures, etc. … Physical support is provided to the channel message, performing the functions of transmission or distribution by the message. The originality of the message is given by information.

In terms of quantity the information can be measured both of the time of transmission and at the moment of reception so that they could determine whether or not a message contains more information than another. In a bid to ensure the accuracy of the message, the transmitter may be concerned about the issue of a greater amounts of information than they should be naturally. This gives redundancy, “surplus letters selectively to those which would have been required to carry the same amount of originality.” This surplus should be understood as “a measure of shape, because the information did not indicate the difference between what is transmitted and what is necessary.”

Effects of communication can be cognitive, affective and behavioral responses and should not be confused with the message received. The answer is a message returned by the receiver in response to the stimulus sent by the transmitter, and sometimes can come even on the transmitter in response to his message. The purpose of the communication process exists to the extent that the transmitter encoded message is decoded and accepted by the receiver. Code knowledge information requires respecting the signs and symbols used, and any errors can be easily detected and corrected. When the meaning is encoded in words, the message type is one word and communication is verbal. If the meaning is carried through more than words, the message and communication are non-verbal. The content and manner in which is communicated are under the influence of context. Assessment involves analysis of several contextual dimensions: physical, temporal, cultural, social and psychological. Comprehension ability of the receiver should never be ignored and the message must be carefully constructed.

For people, the relationships created by communication sometimes matter more than the information content transmitted, so that its role is to create fellowship and community.

Language

Language is any system or set of signs that allows the expression or communication.

Language is (common sense) particular social product of the faculty of language, the necessary conventions of communication, information exchange adopted more or less conventional speakers by a company to perform the function through speech.

We can say that language was invented to allow people to communicate their thoughts, and for that speech should be an array of thought, grammatical structures had to be some sort of copy of intellectual structures. Subordination of the communication function of representation has been called into doubt the comparatists. Applying the principle of economy in communication usually causes constant phonetic erosion which may be unrecognizable grammatical structures. So the language “evolved”, although increasingly responding to the needs of communication, no longer claim to adequacy in relation to the structures of thought, thus losing its representative function.

Transmitter

──────

Information code = language

─────►

Receiver

Human intellect built his language trying to build up a representation of his own image, “thus taking in his own possession by an act of reflection becoming not only possible but necessary.”

Forms of communication

From the standpoint of conventional psychology, we have two forms of communication:

1. Verbal communication uses language as a code word, which is the most sophisticated system of meanings used by the members of a society. Words (vocabulary) and rules of operation with the meaning (grammar) make possible not only communication but also the development of human intellect; in the learning process, logical thinking is formed by understanding the implications, the relations expressed through concepts, judgments. Verbal communication may be oral (auditory analyzer addresses) or written (visual analyzer).
2. Nonverbal communication

Along with verbal communication, each participant in the communication process uses a series of other codes, nonverbal, that are meant to accompany and shade the meanings, to contextualize them, in general to facilitate the understanding of the transmitter*s intentions. Each child learns through imitation and and impregnation before the language codes, a series of value-expressive elements of communication (nonverbal symbols) that the participants in a culture use as a “language” default, meaning that there is no need to describe someone or try to teach children explicitly.

According to the report by the collecting information in the context of the receiver types of communication, in oral communication are:

• 7% words;
• 38% paralanguage (mainly voice intonation and inflection);
• 55% non-verbal language.

This percentage has been established in the mid 70s by A. Mehrabin and M. Weiner in Decoding of Inconsistent Communication.

Adopting the rules of verbal and nonverbal communication, the person specifies the position which adopts in the social interaction and his desire to be treated in accordance with this position by the other participants in communication. Peculiarities of a group of nonverbal communication is essential for a person from outside who wants to effectively communicate with its members. It is known how experienced teachers when speaking students, take not only language but also the elements of nonverbal communication (gestures, mimicry, etc…) their family, making it easier to be accepted and listened, just because the recipients of communication perceive them as close, “popular”.

Communication adult – child

• Have we forgotten that we were children?
• How would our child look over 18 years when he reaches the age of youth? Will he be doing? Will he be a young motivated, determined?
• What we want to become our child? Can be a wrong question. What is best for him?
• What he wants? If 20 years ago we all saw us doctors, actors, engineers, what our children want today?

We live surrounded by rules, formalism, information more or less useful. We are under pressure to be responsible, capable, interested in our own careers. We forget to live as real. We turn our children into adults, asking them to do everything that we could not, we provide them an efficient education, but we forget that they are children, they learn by playing, they want a story not necessarily mathematics lessons.

What a child wants?

• to be Spiderman or Spies
• to be Ben 10 or Barbie
• to be in the spotlight
• to be free and not coerced
• to have happy and fulfilled parents
• to enter into a dream world where everything is possible
• to be their birthday every day
• to receive one toy every week
• to be invited to parties for children
• to do during a day all we do in a week

Many times, beyond theory, adult-child communication loses its spontaneity and are accessible only to an exchange of requests, denials, threats and conditionality which they make them mutually.

The child, most often is educated in a manner devoid of flexibility, so that parents do not know what to do or do not have energy do do anything. If we are talking about a child with special needs that require more attention and patience, the experience shows that in parent-child relationship we often face problems such as family members need to communicate because they often are marginalized. They need emotional support and understanding because may appear the fatigue, anxiety and disillusionment

The term creativity is rooted in the latin word “creation“, which means “to father”, “to build”, “create”, “giving birth”. Etimology itself demonstrates that the term “creativity” defines an dynamic process that develops, perfects and includes both its origin and purpose. Psychologists say in general that being creative means to create something new, original and appropriate reality. To create is to make it to be, bringing to life, cause, generate, produce.

Why do we need creativity – how do we help?

“It is never too early to start educating the creativity; creative work should not be limited by any restrictions, limitations, criticism.” (V. Lowenfeld).

A creative is characterized by originality, expressiveness and is imaginative, generative, pioneering, inventive, innovative.

Concern for children’s creative capacity is closely linked to the desire to respect their ideas, to act on their initiative, to plant them confidence in their own possibilities in consciousness and respect for what they believe and how to express colleagues.

There are many psychological and cognitive availability in education of creativity to a child:

• Need to broaden the cognitive experience;
• Curiosity and interest in knowledge;
• Developing language skills;
• Establishment of voluntary forms of mental processes;
• Gaining some skills;
• The emergence of competitiveness as a catalyst for all the activities and expression of growth and involvement in the community.

The artistic-arts activities have a positive impact on preschool child’s personality – from about four years – not only from the aesthetic, but also morally, emotionally, intellectually, etc.

These include:

• Physical Effort
• Precise movements
• Synchronizing movements with the thought to complete
• Give the child the possibility of a direct knowledge of the working characteristics of materials, to label them, to set in their memory the shape and color, to know the functionality.

What helps us to develop our creativity?

Creativity can help us to take the right decisions for us; gives us the opportunity to see so many opportunities and paths, as well:

• Development thinking artistic-arts
• Develop hand for writig
• Development of sensibility and aesthetic taste

In this context, the role of artistic-arts activities is to guide each child to the active expression of personal freedom to think, feel and act according to needs, inclinations, interests, capacities and possibilities of each individual, which will lead to growth the creative energies from each child.

Predispositions to childhood development are creating a favorable start training exercises to pursue the intelleactual factors of creativity:

• Flexibility
• Fluidity
• Originality
• Develop
• Sensitivity
• Intuition

To get to know and understand the beaty of nature and art, and social life, the child must be helped to recognize artistic language elements that are found in the environment – point, line, shape, color.

The orentation of the children to observe the environment hepls them to discover the form (sun, clouds, trees, fruits, flowers), size and color. Drawing their attention to the variety of these characteristics at the various elements, giving them the word that initiated to identify and acquire artistic language and directing their perceptions, representations and emotions we can help them to dicover the beauty, the artistic emotion.

Works of art, to the extent that they are accessible to children, literature, in particular, can provide the appearance of artwork that will provide concrete working material and combinations in various creative works. The more valuable and more accessible is the art even more strongly influence a child’s creative development opportunities.

Given the link between design, color and personality, the activity of painting can be a real source of knowledge and assessment of children’s personality development.

By implementing the various strategies children can discover the skills, build and develop those skills specific the artistic activity that will allow to obtain good results and beyond.

Stimulation may be initiated in children means:

• Develop creative thinking and dropping some knowledge, because I noticed that children should enrich representations about the environment through all kinds of activities, continuing this process of knowledge within walking when children can see the real elements of the environment, shapes and appropriate colors of the visited environment.
• Children are familiar with the concepts such as: painting, exhibition, exhibition-contest, exhibition sales, work of art.
• Children live the beauty of their own painting, or other children and become familiar with the composition, perceive the relationship between shapes, colors, sizes and can express personal thoughts and feelings.
• Give children oportunities to complement their knowledge, encourages skills and develops creative and cooperative personality.

Direct contact of children with the activities enhance the effectiveness of the educational approach, given the vast availability of small children to discover and assimilate all that arouses their alive curiosity, the purpose of acquiring of the behaviors:

• To be better;
• More sensitive to the environment;
• More full of solicitude.
• To act more disciplined;
• More responsible;
• More full of initiative;
• May prompt compliance with rules and regulations af the creative act.

The teacher can influence the creative potential of the children not only the content of activities, strategies used or the incentive, but rather through their own creative attitude (cognitive interests and dedication to the profession, receptiveness to new, cultivation consistent originality, etc.)

C.W.Taylor describes five “planes” of creativity:

1. Expressive Creativity manifests itself freely and spontaneously in young children’s drawings or constructions. There is no question at this stage about using or originality. But it is an excellent way to foster creative skills that will manifest later.
2. Production Plan is the plan to create objects, specific to regular employment. A potter or a weaver of carpets produce objects whose form is done according to a tradition, a technique law, personal contribution being reduced. It is the plan that access any hard worker.
3. Inventive Plan is accessible to a very important minority. It is inventors, those people who fail to make a partial improvement tools, a device, a controversial theory. In a large country such as Japan, every year are registered more than 100,000 patents, which provide a visible improvement of the production.
4. Innovative Creativity we find the people characterized as “talents”. They performed works whose originality is observed at least domestically.
5. Emerging Creativity is a characteristic of a genius, of a human being that brings radically and revolutionary changes in a field whose personality is required over several generations.