The computer was science's best gift in the 20th century. Now, in the new century, whether or not people can use the computer and anything related to it is regarded as the standard. In June 1997, a trial class of computer-aided painting was established at the China Children's Center to teach children how to use computers.
The class is divided into three sections according to the students' ages. For students from five to ten years old, the class focuses on cultivating an interest in painting and cultivating basic capacities through painting. Computer-aided painting will arouse a passion for painting among those children and relieve the conflict between studying and playing.
For students from 10 to 15 years old, the class focuses on aesthetic judgment and artistic appreciation while teaching painting skills. For students over 15 years old, the focus is on cultivating artistic creativity and having a good command of the relations between skills and the arts.
The artistic creativity of children usually far exceeds that of adults. Sitting in front of the computer screens, the children use electronic brushes to put their inspirations and conceptions in their works, such as the antiques on Grandpa Getting to Sleep and the electronic circuit on In the E-Age. Limited by their skills, teenagers cannot always paint what they would like, but the problem does not exist in computer-aided painting. "Maybe I cannot paint what I thought of," says the artist of Time and I, "but I can make it on the screen."
(China Pictorial 06/13/2001)
