There will be workshops devised for the 'Parental Conversations' exhibition in Cardiff 2016:
the workshops will build upon a project undertaken together with Valley and Vale Community Arts entitled: The Social Potentials Of
Creative Thinking: this project aims to identify evidence of how children infuse meaning through drawing and determine how effective
drawing can be as a mode of conversation or problem solving tool for individuals and groups.
There are distinct parallels between creative play and the act of drawing, both activities transport the mind from one reality to another;
from the concrete environment to a more liberated or suggestible world. Difference lies in the capacity of drawing to visualize creative
thinking as it takes place. Used as a means to establish the context and progression of ideas, drawing can record not only discrete
incidents of creativity but perhaps more significantly, visualize a child’s negotiation of their wider psychological world - a powerful tool
to reflect and learn.
The traversing of real and imaginary worlds is of key importance to the success of the workshops, the fluidity of movement between modes of thought encourages the most responsive creative thinking. Taking place with children at key stages across artistic development; from pre-reflexive, schematic and representational, thoughts and ideas can be examined that are spontaneous and gestural as well as more cognisant articulations of events and consequences.