Colourful World of Innocent Minds!

Colours play a very important role in shaping a child’s world. Many experts have researched on the connection between colours and a child’s mind. A child’s drawing and colours used reflects her psychology and mental condition. Therefore, parents should encourage children to draw more and more pictures. Drawing not only gives happiness, it also is a powerful tool of communication between parents and children. Pratod Karnik explores this interrelation of drawing, colours and children. 

When I was in school, most Marathi medium schools had white half sleeved shirt and khaki half pants as their school uniform. Since I was also in Marathi school, I too had the same uniform. But some schools had cream coloured shirt and dark brown pants while some schools had sky blue shirt and navy-blue pants as their uniform. I would always think other uniforms looked smarter than my uniform and this unknowingly developed an inferiority complex in me. I strongly feel the concept of one state, one uniform must have come after an extensive study by the experts. 

The entire house along with children’s bedroom should be painted and arranged in colours that would make children happy.

At a very young age, the waves and energy arising from one’s surroundings are very carefully observed by children, and they express themselves in response to these feelings. Since young children have limited vocabulary, they knowingly or unknowingly express themselves in the form of pictures they draw and colour. This is their response to the impressions created by the happenings around them. In this process, while choosing colours and color combinations, they tend to choose colours that correspond with their thoughts and feelings. It is a symbolic manifestation of their emotions, quite naturally, without their knowledge. Therefore, I feel, this article will help in understanding the impressions that a child’s mind will take from his surroundings. 

With every new generation, new words find their way in the language. These days, the term “young and vibrant” is commonly used to refer to the youth of today i.e., the younger generation. But how many of us know that this is not just a term but a fact, which tells us about the connection between colours and a young mind. Children and youth prefer vibrant bright colours. They are attracted towards yellow, pink, blue, purple, green, purple colors. Whereas middle-aged and aging people tend to automatically turn to colors like white, blue, light yellow. However, these days some oldies past their seventies are seen wearing bright and colorful clothes to show off ‘Hum ab bhi jawan hain’ (‘I am still young’). But that’s a different story altogether because the purpose of it to only to show off and not genuine and as per liking. So be it.

Elsa Feher Karen and Rhys Meyer from San Diego State University in California have done extensive research on this. They studied the effects, and the preferences of colours on different groups of children, young and old people at the same time. The study highlighted the relation between color preferences and age.

Though this painting had black and red colours, they portray the imagination and positivity.

Nowadays after stressful business and legal matters when we buy a new home, we start looking for a creative and affordable interior decorator who will design our space for us. And here comes the topic of how to decorate a kid’s room. Most parents prefer murals or wall paintings of cartoon characters, flowers and smiling children playing, and sometimes animals, birds, fish etc., with bright colours. This is what is demanded from the interior decorator. Then, a bright color scheme like Cadbury Gems balls is chosen for the children’s room. But have you ever given a thought whether the 4 or 5-year-old child is going to be happy looking at his brightly coloured room only. What about the walls of the remaining house? In fact, if the walls and surroundings of all the rooms where children live and play are decorated with attractive colors of yellow, orange, sky blue, pink, light green or light parrot, blue, purple, green, it will have a very good and positive effect on the children’s mind. Instead, painting their room alone with their favorite colors may make their universe even smaller, limited to their room. I have seen some houses in Mumbai, where when the children were small, the whole house was decorated in a color scheme of children’s liking. I understand this is not possible for all. But if we keep in mind the purpose behind this and the psychology of children, we can make the needed changes. In Iran, there is special research on children’s painting and color composition in the last ten years. Child psychologists have also come to many conclusions through research and study, which are very important for us to understand.

Pictures express the confusion and fear in child’s mind.

Aren’t the feelings of anger, resentment, loneliness in the minds of children too? Parents can easily gauge this from the use of colors and their combination scheme used by children in their pictures. The thing that spreads negativity in the minds of most children at a young age is fear. This fear can be of anything – horror story seen on TV, or a person, or difficulty in school studies, or parents’ yelling. And then these children keep rotting inside. Pictures of such children are painted in red, black, and grey colors. However, parents should not think that just because red and black colors are used, the kids are scared. The above picture is deliberately given for that. It shows a rocket on a fiery arrow hurtling into space. A child’s imagination can be seen in leaps and bounds in this picture. This is a very positive reflection of the child’s mind. That is, when feelings of indifference, boredom, fear are reflected in such color scheme, it means something negative and sad feelings are deep in the minds of our children.

This is the monster in Paresh’s paintings – the one in his drawings and mind.

We knew a boy from the neighborhood. His name was Paresh, then six years old, now he is all grown up and about to complete his education. Today, he is doing MFA, Fine Art. Though filthy rich, the family environment was not that of love or belonging. He had all the freedom in the world to buy whatever he wanted. Right from the beginning, he always had a car, a driver, and a nanny at his disposal. Despite all these pleasures, he was a very silent boy. He would sit alone for hours and paint and paint and paint. But the pictures would always be of the same kind. He would draw and paint scary monsters, ghosts, devils etc. and the colours used would be gloomy – mostly black, red, grey, etc. I used to visit his place pretty often then and he would show his drawings to me with a lot of enthusiasm. Once when I went to this house, the nanny opened the door. Paresh’s mother used to be very busy so the mother-child would seldom meet. The nanny told me that Paresh was painting in his room. So, I went to his room and what I saw stunned to see that his room was painted with dark red colour. The reason being, Paresh’s family would get their house painted every year and so this time when the child was asked to choose colour his room, he chose dark red. As I reached the room and entered, I was taken aback. I could not be in that room for even five minutes.

After he started enjoying the nature, the themes in his drawings changed from monsters to colourful flowers, birds, and fish.

Once I took Paresh to a nearby garden. I would do that many times, whenever I had time. A different environment used to get him talking because the colorful flowers, butterflies and other children playing there would amaze him. Once during our conversation, I told Paresh, though these are so beautiful, it’s very difficult to get the same bright colours on paper and for that the drawing has to be real good. This trick worked on him. After two days he came to me with three or four drawings. For the first time, I saw beautiful fresh colors, colorful flowers, butterflies, birds, fish in his paintings. That’s how the use of colours in his pictures started changing. 

Children eventually learn the techniques of colour combination, and shapes. But impromptu paintings reveal what is deeply set in their minds and hearts.

When a child is painting a picture, if there is constant use of bright red, black, dark shades, the expression of the picture is extremely sad. This means the child is depressed, confused, or scared. On the contrary, if a child uses pleasant colors and shades in his picture, the child has positive feelings and waves in his mind. The days of nuclear most couples have single child and are unable to give much time to the child. At such times, depression could hit the child due to loneliness and that is reflected in his paintings. That’s why parents should pay attention to their children’s pictures instead of scolding them for drawing vague things. Questions like “what are you doing, why are you wasting paper’, will discourage them. It is very important to find out the reasons behind these pictures and help them share those feelings. 

As we have seen in the previous stories, basically it is important for parents to understand that painting is not just an art, but also an expression of emotions of children’s minds. If we can understand the conflict, the storms, the feelings in the children’s minds through the colors used in their pictures, then when they will grow with positivity and walk in the world with confidence and a happy mind. They will choose an independent existence and a path for themselves. They will firmly say, “Ranguni rangat sarya, rang majha vegla” (Despite being soaked in all the colours, I have a different story to tell). 

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Pratod Karnik

Click on following link to visit Chinha’s online child art gallery

ARTFUL SPIRIT