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Picture of a Christian cross made up
of colorful block designs.
Through block-printing, people have
created more designs and patterns than we will ever be able to
count. The cross in the picture above shows how simple
designs, repeated with different colors can create something we
all recognize and respect. Any child can create such a
pattern, especially once they've been shown how it's done.
Beauty and meaning is often added to every day items by adding
simple designs. A child can learn young in life how to
decorate cloth, leather, wood, stone, even concrete, by
painting, printing, carving or otherwise making his or her mark
in an acceptable and beneficial way. Children can be
encouraged to express their creativity in positive and useful
ways, to help the artist, the designer or the engineer in them
to develop properly.
Never assume your child has no
creative abilities to express, or the need to get them out.
Every human soul has mountains of creativity deep inside.
Our ability and need to create, arrange, change and reshape
things is a very big part of what it means to be human. As
God created a cat to meow, so He made us to create.
Anyone good at organizing a room, a
house, a weekly schedule is applying the creative ability God
gives to us all. Setting a table (remember those days?),
arranging items on a shelf in the pantry, making a functional
chair or bench, cleaning a car — all of these seemingly mundane
tasks make good use of the artist in us all, just as mowing a
lawn, writing our name, or speaking to a neighbor, a friend or
relative.
It may take some work to see how
these and other every day things make use of creative ability,
but they all do. In fact, it is in the every day things we
say and do that most of what we now call art and design springs.
A plain piece of leather or cloth used for clothing or to cover
a shelter is cut a certain way, placed a certain way, arranged
to fit just right. Any stitching, a purely functional
task, becomes part of the design. A little experimenting
produces better stitching, more secure, and perhaps more
pleasing to the eye — a new design is born.
Then, of course, there is the
coloring of the cloth, or maybe a deliberate design painted onto
the leather. The best design and art is always born of
function, but it does not remain there. A shape or color
or curve developed to serve a specific and purely functional
purpose on one item may soon be carried over to an entirely
different item, when another artisan is inspired by the new
look.
And so on. You probably know a
lot more about these things already than I ever will. I
only wish to point out that God creates each of us with a mind
and heart filled with creativity, even though it may express
itself in ways that we never recognize as creative or artistic.
Every functional design requires creative perception and
ability, and what we usually recognize as art is the merely same
kind of creativity applied for the purpose of enjoying the
design itself.
The above graphic may be used by Christian believers in various kinds of
personal witness, for church programs, and other Christian
activities. There is no charge for this use, so long as
the copyright/credit info is included with the image or a link
back to this site is provided.
To use the graphics on this site,
right click the image (Mac users hover the mouse cursor over the
image) and select the "Save As" or "Save Image As" and save the
file on your computer's hard drive. Images not saved to
your computer will not work properly (especially animated GIF
files), or will suffer broken links in a short time.
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