Perfection through pencils

SMALL STROKES

Little masterstrokes can make a big difference to the visual art scene in the City and the creative start-up, ‘Pencil Play’, aims to build a blooming dream.

Started by three creative thumbs – Smitha, George and Aditya, last November, ‘Pencil Play’ works towards bolstering critical thinking through visual arts among children while they watch their pencils fly in and out of paper. 
The three have been working with child development specialists and sensed the importance of bolstering creativity and critical thinking from a budding age as they feel that such experiences enhance future cognitive growth and thus began the journey. 

Through eclectic activities during ‘Play Jams’ for tiny tots from the ages of four to eight, such as ‘Design a monster’, ‘Read and draw your favourite story’ and ‘Play baker’s assistant’, ‘Pencil Play’ wishes to improve fine-motor abilities, visual-spatial thinking skills and storytelling abilities.

They have also collaborated with the National Gallery of Modern Art, where they conducted illustration workshops. Their biggest highlights include a collaboration with ‘Snehadhara Foundation’, where they used art as therapy and also a festive Christmas session where children designed and built a cakebox in which parents snuck in cupcakes that the kids later decorated. 
Another facet of ‘Pencil Play’ is their mobile app which the three created to track the child’s creative growth. The prototype was launched last year, which uses the concept of a ‘skill-tree’ and showcases parents whose skills are not unique entities outside of oneself but is scoffolded and built upon each other.
Smitha says, “Our app is designed for busy parents. It puts together activities and material lists. It reminds parents about the participatory activities beforehand. Once the activity is completed, parents can upload a picture of the finished activity online via our app to see what skills the child has currently learned.” They will soon be releasing a new version of their app which is completely redesigned based on the feedback that they have received from early users. 
They personalise and plan activities for children based on their age and the child’s current development milestone. “The idea is to immerse the child in specific learning activities and test for comprehension. Other than that, we do not grade the child in any way. We have to be careful here because parents have certain expectations of report-cards and we don’t want to go down that route,” says Smitha. 
Smitha feels that the visual arts in critical thinking is a largely untouched and lightly dabbled-with subject in India and this is mainly  because of how art is perceived by parents and educational institutions. She adds, “Grown-ups look at art as though it is something that is other than themselves, an activity to be pursued and one that requires time.

When this happens, there is a trade-off and art is treated as a non-essential, non-core subject. This is a huge problem as visual-thinking is a critical thinking ability that helps your mind connect dots to make sense of abstraction. By depriving children of this natural ability, parents and institutions are running the danger of raising children as purely convergent, analytical thinkers and not creators or makers.” 

She feels schools play a major role in improving the health of visual arts. “Since parents look towards education as a career requirement, schools feel the pressure to focus on STEM subjects alone. Globally, however, there is a call for the arts to be integrated as core subjects (STEAM). Perhaps the Indian education landscape should wake up to this as well. Our economy needs more inventors, makers and creators - and this starts with early learning.”