An interesting and unusual workshop was organized by the INTEGRARE EUROPEANA IN DOMENIUL TINERETULUI, SPORTULUI, VOLUNTARIATULUI SI CETATENIEI ACTIVE EUROPENE, in the Covid 19 pandemic. Art therapy. Expression through art was absent during this period and that is why the impact of our workshop was very strong on people with autism, on teachers, on volunteers and psychologists, all were caught in the vortex of creation.
The workshop was organized according to the model launched at the Erasmus+ training course in Barcelona Spain. The technique approached was the technique of artistic expression of Henri Matisse, great French painter, who, in a period of suffering when he could no longer paint classically, began to expose his ideas with the help of paper cut with scissors. Henri Matisse developed a new way of making art. An ongoing illness left him homebound, and during that time, he became inspired by paper. He moved away from drawing and painting and began to make compositions from cut pieces of painted paper. Matisse called his process “drawing with scissors.” His famous explorations of color and line exploded into energetic collages known as cut-outs. He made this technique famous. And we in our workshop approached the same technique of expression through art.
The cutting technique is currently done according to a drawn outline, but at this workshop it was a great wonder for the participants when they were told that they had to cut as their mind dictates. The beginning was quite shy, no one thought he had the freedom to cut to his heart’s content. When they felt the taste of freedom and the possibility of free expression, the young artists took courage, and the works were successfully completed.
Participants in this workshop saw famous pictures of Matisse, the use of complementary colors impressed the most but an amazing effect was the painting from the Cubism period, when Matisse was friends with Picasso and adopted the same style in painting as this one.
At the end of the workshop, all participants have already established that the next activity theme is Picasso and Matisse-period of Cubism.